Rewound
by Kate Christie
Summary: "There was no air, no room left in his chest with the pounding swell of his heart, stuttering along, waiting for her to tell him it was true, that she'd really come back." A season six Castle story.
1. Chapter 1

**Rewound Chapter One**

His eyes were drifting closed for the third time in the past half hour, and somehow he couldn't quite bring himself to care. Gina was in droning mode. They were down to the extremely nitpicky and even more boring than usual details of his contract. The only reason he needed to be here was to sign on the dotted line once it was all over.

Kate was due to call him-hopefully sooner rather than later. If she finished her day of courtroom preparation early enough, he might even get to escape the droning in favor of take-out from... maybe Italian? Louie's was on his way, and it was Tuesday, so they had that spinach lasagne that Kate loved last time. Oh, and there was a bottle of Sangiovese he'd gotten from-

The phone buzzed in his pocket, snapping him to attention. Excusing himself with a sheepish smile, he stepped out into the hallway.

Esposito never called him. A ripple of unease twisted at his gut.

"Castle."

If the call itself hadn't set off warning lights, the detective's overly calm tone of voice would have.

"Castle, you need to meet us at Presbyterian as fast as you can get there. Leave your meeting."

His heart stopped. Absolutely ceased to pump. Then the surge of adrenaline took over, and he was in a dead sprint to the elevators, the phone still pressed against his ear. It didn't even occur to him to tell Gina he was leaving.

"What happened?"

He knew to whom he was running-the only person that could make Javier speak to him in a voice so simultaneously serious and terrified.

"She's been in an accident."

He shoved onto the elevator even though it was full of rush-hour suits, hoped he wouldn't lose his cell signal before he could hear the answer to his next question.

"Is she… how bad is it?"

His heart was racing now, cold sweat beading on his forehead, dripping down his back. He consciously took in a breath when dizziness threatened. He must have been holding it.

"She's alive."

And then his phone went silent.

# * # * # * #

As he cleared the automatic doors into the ER, his feet nearly went out from under him. He had run blindly for a cab through the rainstorm, and he was soaked, dripping on the linoleum floor, leather shoes losing traction as he changed direction on seeing Ryan and Esposito standing near the nurse's station.

"How is she?"

They turned toward him in unison, Ryan gripping his shoulder as Esposito nodded toward a quiet corner. Both had a stony sort of calm clouding their features, but the clench of Esposito's jaw betrayed his worry. This must have been as bad as his over-wrought mind had been imagining.

"She's in surgery. Her dad is on the way, but they wouldn't let us see her before they took her in. All I could get out of the nurses was that she wasn't conscious when they brought her in, and she's in an emergency procedure."

Esposito's shoulders, already ramrod straight, clenched tighter, puffing out his chest as if he'd failed to break a suspect in interrogation, not shut down by a nurse at the ER.

"What the hell happened? She wasn't even on a case today."

It was Ryan's kind eyes that finally eased back some of the desperation gripping Castle's heart. The man knew how to diffuse this kind of panic.

"It was a car accident. A delivery truck. Witness said she was traveling through the intersection on a green light, not speeding, and this truck just plows through the intersection and T-bones her cruiser."

Lines deepened on Esposito's forehead as he took up the narrative again.

"Guy told the uniforms on the scene his brakes failed. We asked them to get his cell records to see if he was texting or something."

Castle's stomach took a roll, and, suddenly, he thought he might actually empty his stomach. Ryan gripped his elbow, an anchor if not a comfort.

"Hey, they're bound to tell you something. You should go try. The nurse in the green scrubs at least looked guilty when she told us she couldn't give us any details."

Putting one foot in front of the other had never been this impossible. He wanted to know, needed to know as much as he possibly could. But some deep instinct slowed his steps. Not knowing, this frantic flux of guessing, might actually be preferable to...

No. Not an option.

"I need information on Kate Beckett, the police officer who was brought in a little while ago."

"And you would be?" The middle-aged brunette had the look of a prison guard, eyes cooly suspicious, as if waiting for the flash of yet another badge.

"Richard Castle, her fiancé."

"Oh." That seemed to give her pause.

A few clicks of her mouse and "Sarah," as her nametag identified her, met his eyes, hers looking much softer than they had only moments before.

"Ms. Beckett has just come out of surgery, and she's been transferred to the recovery room in stable condition. The procedure was listed as an emergency repair of a compound wrist fracture. Dr. Wells should be out shortly to speak with you."

"Does it say anything about why she was unconscious? What other injuries she had?"

"I need to let Dr. Wells discuss the details with you. I have access to her location, condition, and operating room information, and that's all. But the doctor will be able to tell you more of what happened since she got here, and he shouldn't be long."

The smile she gave him at least seemed genuinely sorry about the lack of information. Thanking her, he turned back to the two detectives who were now huddled together deep in conversation.

A wrist fracture couldn't be too serious, could it? But why would they have taken her into emergency surgery for broken bones? It didn't make sense. And it didn't explain why she had been unconscious when she arrived. Damn his writer's brain for needing more, for pushing past the facts into wild speculation.

Ryan shifted his attention to Castle as soon as the detective noticed him crossing the room again, quieted Esposito with slant of his eyes and raised his brows expectantly.

"She had surgery for a broken wrist, and she's out now. The doctor should be here any minute with more information."

"We just found out that the driver of the truck is here getting checked out. Thought we might go pay him a visit."

The rush of adrenaline was still flooding out most of Castle's better judgement, but a spark of an idea was simmering to life in the back of his mind-there was just something a little bit off about this whole situation.

"Guys, don't you think there's something not quite right about this story? Brakes that fail in midtown Manhattan during rush hour, a truck moving fast enough to crush her sedan in that gridlock?"

He had their attention, though both men looked more wary than intrigued. With no proof of anything, no facts to go on, they would be acting on friendship alone if they believed him now. But hell, the four of them had done a lot in the name of friendship in the past six years-this suspicion needed out.

"It doesn't sit right. My gut is telling me there's more to this than a simple traffic accident."

Esposito gave him a firm nod, his features opening up for the first time since Castle had arrived.

"Listen, bro, we're on it. If this guy has anything to hide, anything at all, we'll find it. You have my word."

Those words lifted the weight of doubt from his subconscious. No one could argue with Esposito's resolve to protect his own.

Castle accepted a hug from Ryan with a quiet, "She'll be fine, you'll see," offered at his ear. Silently praying for those words to be true, his eyes followed their retreating forms heading toward triage.

Squeezing his eyes tight when he lost sight of them, he made the decision not to sit, knowing he needed to burn the nervous energy rather than let it fester.

Twenty minutes and two phone calls later, he was still pacing, the sense of dread ever expanding in his chest despite the confident platitudes he had fed his mother and daughter. Both were on their way even though he had tried to protest, and he was glad. Because the last time he'd waited for her like this, he'd had Lanie, and her dad, and his family, and the boys, and even then he'd felt more alone than ever before in his life. Having no buffer, no familiar faces to occupy his thoughts, keep them from swirling down into the blackness of so many unknowns- this was drowning.

The laminate flooring reflected warped bands of fluorescent light that marked the path of his feet- ten steps down, ten steps back. The random assortment of strangers sitting uncomfortably in the padded chairs failed to offer even the comfort of fodder for character backstories. His creativity was instead occupied by thoughts of what state Kate might be in when he finally laid eyes on her. His mind's eye kept flashing to her face, pale against the grass and getting paler by the minute, as her best friend straddled her hips trying to pump life back into her.

How long could it take for a doctor to wash his damn hands?

All he wanted was to be in the same room with her; to hear her breathing, feel the warmth of her skin, see the pulse fluttering at that spot she loved for him to kiss on the curve of her neck. Was that really so much to ask?

"Family for Katherine Beckett?"

For an instant, he froze mid-pace, not sure if he should believe his ears.

"Detective Kate Beckett?"

The muscles of his neck would probably smart later from the speed and force of his head turning toward the strong, clear, baritone voice.

"Here. Right here."

In four long strides, he was eye to eye with the well-muscled man about his own age, looking comfortably professional in royal blue scrubs with the crest of the hospital printed on the front pocket. The man's grip was as steady as his gaze when they shook hands. The designer glasses highlighted solemn brown eyes, an honest, if stark, face, clean shaven though framed by curly salt-and-pepper hair that could have used a trim.

"Richard Castle."

"I'm Jeremy Wells. Let's step in here."

They ducked into a small conference room, but when the doctor shut the door, neither sat at the round oak table populated with the same purple chairs that had filled the waiting room.

"I'm the vascular surgeon that helped repair the artery in Detective Beckett's hand."

"What? I heard she had broken her wrist. She damaged an artery?"

The panic he had been suppressing somewhat unsuccessfully for the past hour boiled to the surface, made him volatile, unreasonable. Male. The surgeon didn't flinch, kept his composure in the face of hostility, as though this were not an uncommon occurrence in his daily life. But rather than condescension, the man gave off an energy of calm.

"That was the reason for the emergency procedure, Mr. Castle. She was losing blood, and we needed to repair the tear in the vessel to ensure she maintained circulation to her hand. When her wrist was caught between the steering wheel and the door, it fractured two bones, but the artery was damaged when they were displaced. Fortunately, it was a simple repair, and the blood loss ended up being minimal. The EMTs on the scene did an excellent job of keeping pressure on the wound, and they called us in so that she was in the operating room almost immediately. She'll be in a cast for the fracture for a while, and that will require rehabilitation, but her hand should heal as good as new- no permanent damage."

Every muscle in his body released by a degree, the tension not gone, but lessened. The red haze clouding his vision receded slightly.

"Thank you."

Whether he was thanking this man, or some higher power, wasn't as important as the sentiment behind the words. Digging deep for some shred of coherence beneath the jittering surface of nerves, he continued, voice still sounding hollow.

"I'm sorry, but I haven't been told very much about her other injuries. She was unconscious when she arrived?"

"She hit her head, and it appears she has a concussion, but she did wake up just before we took her into surgery. She was alert and oriented at that time. The internist who will be taking care of her when she gets out of recovery may want an MRI just to ensure there has been no bleeding around her brain, but there was no indication of that before we took her to the OR."

"So other than the wrist and the concussion- she's- she's going to be okay?"

"I assume you mean... so you're the father, then?"

What the hell was he talking about? He was older than Kate, sure, but was the world just spinning on the wrong axis today? His tone was probably more abrupt than it ought to have been, but he couldn't help the impatience- he just needed information.

"No, I'm the fiance. I'm her power of attorney, though, if there's some question about releasing information."

The man's eyes narrowed slightly, his look at once sharper and more comprehending. His next words were spoken almost to himself.

"So you don't even know yet. I guess I'm not surprised. She's not... If we hadn't done the reflex test, we wouldn't have had any idea."

Every tragic, horrible outcome washed over him at once. She had a tumor, there was some unrecognized fatal disease...

"What test? What are you talking about? You said she was fine. Her wrist and the concussion."

There was a buzz filling his ears, pounding in time with the racing of his heart. Nothing good could come from the next words out of this man's mouth. Nothing. Just the end of the fairy tale he had finally convinced Kate to believe in when she slid that platinum band, diamonds and sapphires sparkling, onto her left hand a month before.

"Maybe you should sit down, Mr. Castle."

There was a lurch in his chest as everything stopped. No, he would not sit. Sitting was for grief. Sitting was for accepting defeat. He would never sit.

"No, no! I'm not going to sit down, you're going to tell me exactly what's going on."

"Calm down, it's nothing to be alarmed about. We were aware of the situation the entire time, took all the right precautions."

His head was pounding now, driving his thoughts and demands, leaving him unhinged.

"What situation? What is wrong with Kate?"

"Nothing is wrong."

His wide, flat palm landed on Castle's shoulder, jolted him just enough to catch his attention. It was the warmth in the doctor's eyes that held his focus, shifted the whole tone of this conversation.

"She's pregnant, Mr. Castle."

**# * # * # * #**

**Author's Note: Thank you to Alex for pulling full on-call beta duty for this actual plotted story. Part psychologist, part editor, I have granted her an honorary PhD for this extraordinary effort. And thank you to Jade for a beautiful piece of art for my cover. She has an uncanny ability to figure out what I am thinking before I actually think it. More to come.**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	2. Chapter 2

**Rewound Chapter Two:**

Time stopped. Everything around him was rising-no, he was sinking. And thank god for the chair that caught him.

His heart went cold. Flashed sparklingly warm. How could...? She was on the pill, and maybe that wasn't perfect, and well, yeah, they had a really healthy sex life.

But a baby? They were months away from the wedding. He was going to be a father again. A baby. A baby with Kate. They had talked, they were going to try... But not until after the wedding...

A baby. _Their_ baby.

Wells sat down opposite him, talking again. Blinking hard, Castle pulled his focus back to the doctor.

"And by all indications, Kate's pregnancy is normal, totally unaffected by the accident. An ultrasound was done as soon as the test result came back. From what the obstetrician told me, it's extremely early in the first trimester-a few weeks at most. She probably wouldn't have even suspected, unless the two of you were actively trying...?"

Castle shook his head absentmindedly, his reply soft. "No, we weren't."

"From your expression just now, I didn't think so." A smile and a memory flashed across the man's features. "My wife and I had our first during my residency. I walked around on a cloud for weeks after I found out, even if it was an 'oops.' Is this your first?"

Everything seemed to have a rosy tint all of a sudden. Something came to life in his chest at that moment, filled the spaces between his ribs with light, forced out the fear and the darkness that had taken up residence.

Oh, wait, he was getting an expectant look. There had been a question... His first? He tried to make his lips do something other than smile idiotically.

"Not mine. But our first, yes. And I've had good luck with oopses."

"Well, congratulations. Would you like to go see her?"

"I can see her?" Out of the seat in a second, he was on his way to the door when he turned back to Wells. "Why didn't you say so?"

# * # * # * #

Stepping through the automatic doors into the recovery ward, he had a momentary lapse into memory-standing outside another hospital room, holding a massive bouquet, hoping, praying that she would be fine, that she had heard him...

Never again. She had heard him every single day since she had agreed to move in with him six months before. It had been part of the deal-she got to hang her Armageddon painting opposite his elephant in their bedroom as long as she agreed not to smack him or flick his ear every time he told her he loved her. That painting really wasn't so bad once you got used to it.

Should he have brought her flowers now? No, no... Wells had warned him she might not even be fully awake yet, what with the lingering anesthesia and the pain medication. He'd find her a whole florist shop's worth later. Just being here would be enough for now.

The doctor had accompanied him, or else he wouldn't have been allowed in. But as they approached the sliding glass door of her booth, Wells pulled the handle to open it and stepped back to let Castle step inside alone.

Well, alone except for the tall, blonde, male nurse manning the impressive array of electronics monitoring Kate, not to mention the top-notch mobile computer workstation.

"Chris, this is Richard Castle, Ms. Beckett's fiancé. I told him if it's okay with you he can sit with her for a while. But he knows he's getting kicked out before she transfers to her room downstairs."

Castle's progress had stalled just inside the door. With so many beeping, flashing machines packed into such a small space, he was afraid his adrenaline would knock him into something vital. But even from here, he could see her.

Just the view did so much to quiet the rush in his head. And despite his worst fears, nothing about her appeared as it had the last time. She was asleep, sooty lashes still against rosy cheeks, pink lips meeting softly. If not for the faint bruise just starting to darken along her hairline, and the clear tubing hooked over her ears supplying oxygen, he might not even have known she was hurt.

Of course, then there was the cast, propped on pillows just off her lap to the left. The fingertips peeking out from its edge were puffy, had been stripped of the nail polish she had treated herself to just a few days earlier in a rare trip to the salon with Lanie.

The tall nurse had a warm voice when he spoke, trying to engage him.

"Mr. Castle, you don't have to be afraid. You can get closer. Why don't you step around this way? I'll find you a chair, and you can hold her good hand. Just be careful of the IV in that arm."

Chris stepped outside after motioning to him to circle the end of her bed, but he reappeared shortly with another purple chair. Castle was navigating around the IV pole and the widescreen monitor suspended from the ceiling, displaying what he assumed was her heartbeat, breathing rate, maybe blood pressure? Everything on it seemed to be steady, regular, not setting off any alarms.

Meeting Chris' confident, kind expression, he took the chair and positioned it beside the bed railing.

"Is she... is everything all right?"

"She did great in surgery, came right off the ventilator with no problem, talked to me a tiny bit before she fell back asleep. I wondered why she was asking about a 'castle.' Makes perfect sense now."

Sitting down, he reached out his hand, let his fingers slide over the white cotton sheet. This was ridiculous. He could touch her; Chris had said so, and he'd been craving the feel of her skin against his, and why the hell was he suddenly so nervous?

Enough.

As he skated his fingertips over the back of her hand, he felt the softness, the warmth, the give. Careful to avoid the wire taped over her fingertip, he wrapped the delicate digits with his own, noticed how thick and fumbling his seemed in comparison. But when he finally got a firm grip, fingers tucked into the hollow of her down-turned palm, thumb brushing back and forth over her knuckles in time with her heartbeat, he smiled, his mind settling on a moment from over a year ago.

_This is me, softly touching your face, pulling you in for a long, slow kiss._

"She's going to be fine."

Castle dragged his focus away from where he'd been staring, transfixed, at the pulse point just above the edge of her hospital gown. Chris was typing something into the computer terminal, but his fingers stilled over the keyboard, and he stepped back to the bedside table, opened a drawer.

"I nearly forgot. They had to take this off, but maybe you can put it on a chain for her until she gets the cast removed."

Without releasing his hold on her hand, which had now become as essential as the beat of his own heart, he reached out for the small bag Chris held over the bed toward him.

Her ring shone out through the clear plastic, but instead of the shiny platinum, sparkling diamond, deep, reflective sapphires, all he could see was the streak of red coating the band and stones.

The ultrasonic cleaner he'd bought her when he got the ring would get that off in no time, but seeing it, having that image to draw from for the rest of his life... part of him wished he could just get her a brand new one.

No, he was being ridiculous. Just because she had finally put her mother's ring away, purged that darkness that had hung around her neck for a decade and a half... It wasn't the same. This ring was about hope. It was about their future, not her past. He would get her a different chain, a better one. One that wouldn't remind her of death. Stuffing the bag into his coat pocket, he turned back to her. He wouldn't let himself get caught up in this moment every time he saw the ring. He wouldn't. He couldn't.

After half an hour, he began to get into the rhythm of the place. Every ten minutes, the automatic cuff on her arm would inflate, then chirp out when her blood pressure came back normal. Chris typed away on the workstation, attention flicking up anytime something made an unexpected noise.

Just as he was verge of feeling comfortable enough to question Chris about how he'd gotten into nursing, the tiny twitch of her hand in his jolted him back to full alert.

Her eyelids scrunched a bit, and she drew in a deeper breath through her nose.

"Hey, Chris. I think she's waking up."

"Good, almost time for my assessment. Talk to her. She'll come out of it."

"Hey, Kate. Wake up for me. Come on."

Her head tossed side to side on the pillow.

"That's it, open your eyes."

Lids fluttering, she clamped down tight on his fingers. The quick motion must have made one of her sensors unhappy, because a shrill beep sounded from the monitor.

Stealing a quick glimpse to gauge Chris' reaction, Castle found him unperturbed and decided it must not have been anything serious.

Returning his focus to Kate's face, he was just in time to see the shutters open on those familiar hazel irises, now slightly unfocused, fuzzy.

"Hey, pretty lady. You had me scared there for a bit."

Turning her head, she surveyed the room, the cast encasing much of her lower arm and hand, and finally, him. The confusion melted slightly when they locked gazes.

Wetting her lips, she cleared her throat and rasped, "Castle?"

Oh, god, it was good to hear that voice again. It cleared something dark and heavy from his chest, and he felt his lips break into a huge grin.

"The one and only."

Her first instinct was to try to sit up, which her body seemed to disagree with strongly. Taking some of the shock of that pain out on his hand, she sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes tight to try to battle through it.

Chris was at her side immediately, easing her back into the mattress and raising the head of her bed instead, readjusting the pillows propping up her left arm. When she opened her eyes again, they were hazy, still not fully focused. Inhaling carefully, letting the air out between pursed lips, she seemed to gain some control over her reaction, if not over the discomfort itself.

Her focus darted down, inspecting the cast on her wrist, then shifting quickly to her chest, resting uneasily there as a crease deepened over her brow. When she finally looked back up at Castle, her whole face radiated confusion.

Trying her voice again, the words came out in a hoarse whisper.

"What happened to my arm?"

"You just had surgery, but everything went well. That wrist will be good as new in no time."

Chris held a small cup of ice chips out to her, and she let go of Castle's hand to take it. That loss of contact shouldn't have been so devastating, but this day had made him unreasonable, needy, aching for any touch from her. Kate took one or two chunks of ice into her mouth, crunched down, tipped the cup up for more, but her nurse held out his hand for it, setting it back on her bedside table when she reluctantly gave it back to him.

"Not too fast, I don't want your stomach getting upset. The anesthesia hasn't completely worn off yet. I'm going to get you another dose of pain medication, but I need to do my assessment before you fall back asleep. Is that okay?"

Kate started to nod, but stopped halfway with another wince.

"My head hurts."

When Castle slipped his hand back in hers, he was pinned with another quizzical glance, but Kate gripped his fingers back, clinging just enough to make him feel justified in reinitiating that connection.

Chris was checking her over, pressing his stethoscope to several spots against her ribcage, asking her to follow his finger with her eyes, feeling her pulse in both ankles, checking what he could see of her left hand for swelling. When he took a small light from his pocket and shined it in one eye, then the other, she winced, shut her lids against the intrusion.

"Painful?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. Do you feel nauseated? Dizzy?"

"I'm not really sure. I don't think so."

"Good. I need to ask some silly questions now, but just humor me and answer. It's only because of the bump on your head."

Though her lids were starting to droop, lips pressing tighter with every shift of her body in the bed, every tip of her head, Kate managed a wan smile.

"Sure."

"Tell me your full name."

"Katherine Houghton Beckett."

Castle couldn't help the little flicker of excitement at hearing her say her middle name. It had quickly become one of his favorite things about her once he'd dragged it out of her dad. But when he had tried calling her "Houghton," he'd been poked in the shoulder and reminded of their uneasy détente over "Kitten."

"And where are we right now?"

"Manhattan, Presbyterian Hospital, maybe?"

Two for two. The persistent knot in Castle's chest eased a bit more, and he let his thumb trace the peaks and valleys of her knuckles. Maybe she wouldn't even need that MRI. Chris seemed just as pleased by her answers.

"You got it. And what's the date today?"

Kate's gaze shifted between them, a shadow flickering behind her eyes.

"May 16, 2011."

# * # * # * #

**Author's Note: That was an amazing response to the first chapter, and on my birthday, no less. Thank you all for the reviews, follows, and favorites; I hope you continue to enjoy the story. There is more to come. Thank you to Alex for her vigilance in keeping me from drifting, and to Joy, who shall always be "The Finder."**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	3. Chapter 3

**Rewound Chapter Three**

That date shot into her head when the nurse asked. She answered on instinct, as she had been ever since opening her eyes a few minutes before.

There was a haze over every thought, a cloud covering every image. And her head hurt so badly that her vision swam in the light.

But she could make out the sudden shift on her nurse's face at her answer. Must not be right. Nothing felt right.

Her arm was throbbing. But for some reason, she was sure it was her chest that should be.

She just couldn't grab hold of the memories; little wisps of shadow and light slipped through her fingers, escaped her mind's hold.

About the only thing she could hold on to was Castle's hand, warm and strong in hers. And something about that felt… right. But also completely wrong. Why was he here?

Something about getting knocked to the ground, suffocating under him in the grass, watching his face above her, his tears.

Crying.

Why had he been crying?

And the pain. She remembered that clearly enough, but in the wrong place. Letting go of his hand, she brought her fingers to her sternum, pressed where the ghost of that searing, tearing violence was tickling at her ribcage, but she found no wound, no dressing, just a tiny pucker on her skin, rough and round beneath the gown.

Her chest was—she'd been shot.

And Castle had tried to protect her.

But now, now his face was ashen, eyes wide. She needed to close her own again to push the pain down, to keep the throb low enough that she could hear what her nurse was asking her.

"… The last thing you remember?"

Her brain latched onto an image, a voice. Just before the world had gone dark.

He loved her. He'd whispered it, his voice coming to her ears as a distant, echoing thread as he begged her to stay with him. But she'd been too breathless to answer.

Forcing open her lids against the lancing needles piercing her forehead, she found disbelief, shock, sadness staring back, Castle's hand still resting open on the bed beside her. So that was why he was here.

"I was shot. I don't..."

It was too much. Her head was pounding, stealing her concentration. Unable to take it any longer, she shut her eyes, pressed back into the bed, closed off everything.

"Hurts too much. Can't think. Leave me alone."

# * # * # * #

Amnesia.

Ridiculous.

Amnesia was a condition found only in protagonists of Lifetime movies and soap operas—not even reputable soap operas like "Temptation Lane," but the really insane, devil possession, wife-cloning, "Guiding Light," "Days of Our Lives," ones.

Just because four perfectly well qualified doctors and Castle told her she had forgotten almost three years of her life did not mean it was true.

Of course, her thinking might have been swayed slightly by the significant dose of morphine she'd received just before being wheeled down for this MRI. Things were a little spinny right now. Or maybe she was a little spinny. She couldn't be sure, but probably those squiggly little starbursts were not really turning cartwheels...

Thankfully, the tech secured her head into a padded frame to keep her still while the images of her head were acquired. The table moved slowly inside the white cylindrical magnet, a little like a cross between a really twisted Disney ride and a super boring flight simulator.

The disembodied voice of the technician came over the speakers, hollow and tinny, making sure she was okay, and Kate answered with a somewhat slurred, "Sure."

Then the noise began. And though the medication eased the ache in her hand, lessened the pounding in her head to a dull roar, the sudden cacophony was enough to wedge past the pleasant, drug-induced hum.

For the first few minutes, Kate closed her eyes, talked herself out of the irrational fear, the clawing at her insides to get out, to free herself from this tiny, enclosed space.

She wasn't claustrophobic. Where were the cold sweat, the racing pulse, the shallow panting coming from? When a deeper, louder bang began to repeat over and over, she could restrain herself no longer.

Her eyes shot open, wide and roving, searching for any sign of light outside the narrow tube, any indication of an escape, but finding none, she cried out.

"Stop this. STOP IT! Let me out. I need to get out."

To the technician's credit, the machine was off and the table was sliding her toward freedom in seconds. Kicking free of the blankets and grabbing blindly with her one free hand at the cage encasing her face and neck, she tried to wrench herself off the table.

From out of nowhere, warm hands stilled her limbs, and two familiar voices filled the room. One was low and soothing, begging her to be still while they unfastened her; the other was higher but calm, telling her how to breathe through the panic.

When the tech got the mask off, her best friend and her partner each reached around her back, sat her up, held her gently until she got her bearings, until the room stopped flickering and flashing before her eyes.

Their voices were speaking in stereo, one in each ear, coaching her as if this were a common occurrence, and for all Kate knew, maybe it was.

Her body, her emotions, her thoughts—all were betraying her, none were remotely similar to what she remembered of herself from before this night. Maybe she had lost her memory; or maybe she had lost her mind.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her chest heaved in lurching sobs, but slowly her breathing came back to normal; the room ceased to dip and turn. And she was left with Castle's hand stroking gently up and down her spine, his breath warm against her cheek, telling her everything would be fine, and Lanie's fingers grasping her own, her other hand smoothing up and down Kate's shin.

Embarrassment flooded out every other emotion. Where was her control? Where was her discipline? Who was this weak, shivering mess huddled on a hospital table, defenseless against her own insensible reactions?

One of the doctors appeared then; she wasn't sure which one he was. The internist, maybe.

"Ms. Beckett, I'm so sorry, but we didn't get enough information from those first few minutes to say for certain there is no bleeding in your brain. Do you think you can try again? With medication for anxiety this time?"

"You want her to go back in there? Did you see what it did to her? I'm not letting her do that again!"

Castle was livid, his fingers pressing hard points into the muscles of her back.

Lanie clamped a hand on his shoulder, words even and clear.

"Rick, he's trying to help her."

Castle glanced to her, but quickly rounded on the white-coated physician again.

"But can't you do some other scan instead? The one without the noise and the tunnel?"

The young redhead with the stethoscope slung around his neck looked at her with kind eyes; it was easy to see he didn't want to have to do this to her.

"We can't do a CT scan Mr. Castle. You know that. Not right now."

Kate recognized that she was missing some key point, but with all the medication and the return of her headache now in full force, she could barely keep up with their conversation, much less find it in herself to care about its nuances. Drawing a shaky breath, she cleared her throat and spoke up as best she could.

"I'll try again."

Barely recognizing her voice for the gravel underneath, she squared her shoulders, looked the doctor in the eye, saw relief.

"What?"

Castle's brow furrowed as he whipped his head around, looking for all the world like he might rage at her as he'd yelled at the poor doctor. But she refused to back down, tried to portray confidence as she answered him.

"Castle, let him give me the medication. If he needs this scan to try to figure out what's wrong, to try to help me get better, then I'm doing this scan."

Lanie's grip tightened on her knee in gentle support.

"What he's giving her will probably make her so sleepy she'll snooze right through the rest of it, Rick."

Lids closing in defeat, he spoke first to the two women, then bristled again, directing thinly veiled disdain at the man at the door.

"Fine. Fine. Let her try. But if this happens again, I will _not_ let you put her back in that machine again. We'll take her somewhere else, somewhere with a different machine. She's been through enough already."

The medication slithered through her veins, taking away every last vestige of agitation. Castle and Lanie refused to leave her until she was all the way inside the scanner, each of them keeping a hand on top of her blanketed feet, swearing they would be right through the window, that they would talk to her though the microphone.

The last thing she remembered before dreams took her was his voice, a distant, echoing thread, whispering that he loved her.

# * # * # * #

It was nearly midnight when he sat with at her bedside with his thoughts to himself again.

A fitful sleep finally claimed her. The endless visits from specialists and the hour she spent in the MRI machine exhausted him; he couldn't even imagine how hard they were on her.

She saw the internist, the neurologist, the psychiatrist, the orthopedist, and Wells checked in once to make sure his artery was still pumping steadily. Alexis, Martha, Jim, and the boys all wanted to see her, begged him for details. Not knowing how to tell them all that she would refuse, he'd been lucky that every moment of her night was occupied with tests and doctors.

Telling their family was the hardest of all. Refusing to use the word, "amnesia," to even acknowledge to himself that this could be a lasting effect of her head injury, Castle chose instead to tell everyone she was confused, not remembering things well.

From everything the psychiatrist and neurologist said, there was no way to know how long the lapse in memory would last. It could be hours, it could be days; it could be forever. And none of them was surprised that her mind settled on a similar instance of trauma as the cutoff point.

Burke would be getting a call first thing in the morning. Even if she didn't remember seeing him, he certainly remembered her. Her most recent session was only a few weeks before.

But other than calling in her own psychiatrist, getting her back in familiar surroundings, minimizing stress and taking care of her physical injuries, no one seemed to have an answer for how to get it all back.

Three years of her life.

The three years in which she faced her demons, both physical and mental.

Three years in which she finally healed enough to let him in, to start to build a life.

Three years in which she loved him back.

All of that, gone.

Just after she had woken up, before they knew about her memory, there was one moment that crystallized in his brain. She had let go of his hand. In that instant, he knew he had lost her, lost the time, all the _work_ they had both put in.

But more than that, she had lost him.

And she would need him now. _His_ Kate would have grabbed onto him now, hung on for dear life, let him help her battle through. _This_ Kate, the one who had woken up after surgery, was still the woman who three years ago chose to lick her wounds alone, to freeze him out while she suffered through pain and physical therapy and PTSD for months after her shooting.

God, she probably thought she was still with Josh.

Somehow the topic of their engagement had yet to come up. Even the doctors agreed it was probably best to keep her pregnancy from her for just for a little while, until she'd been given time to settle in, to get used to him, and them. But he would have to tell her about their engagement, about the fact that she lived with him, before he took her home.

At least this time, there was no dragon chasing her.

Ryan and Esposito had given the driver of the truck the third degree, run him through every database. Nothing. The guy was clean as a whistle, and so was the company he worked for. Blood alcohol level was undetectable. He didn't even have a cell phone on him in the truck. No connection to Bracken, the mob, or any of Kate's previous collars. Everything pointed to this wreck being an unfortunate accident, devastating but unorchestrated.

Esposito insisted on following up on the truck in the morning, just to be sure that the story about its brakes failing was the truth. Despite this, he and Ryan both seemed convinced they wouldn't find evidence of foul play.

All their reassurances eased the niggling suspicion in the back of his mind somewhat, but it wasn't yet settled, not completely.

His fiancé, if he could still call her that, shifted in bed, rose slightly toward consciousness. Not caring whether he should, or whether it was what she would want, he sandwiched her cool hand between his warmer ones. Resting his cheek against the rough cotton of the purple blanket beside her hip, he finally gave in to the tears threatening to spill over ever since Esposito's phone call had ripped his heart from his chest.

Gratitude. That's what Lanie had said. He should be _grateful _that she was alive, that her MRI, once they got her through it, showed no bleeding in her brain, and that the surgeons were able to repair all the damage in her wrist. Her best friend was absolutely sure that Kate's body and mind would heal, end up good as new, better than ever. His mother and daughter thought so, too. Jim's eyes told another story, with their glassy distance, their easy distraction. Castle and he shared a healthy distrust of fairy tale endings.

But as his tears quietly streamed down, soaking into the blanket, he found that some of them were, in fact, tears of gratitude. He grasped her hand tighter. Because, at the end of the day, some version of Kate was at his side, and if that was all he could get, it was better than a cold, empty bed and a broken, bleeding heart.

It was better than the last time.

# * # * # * #

"Is it done?"

"No, sir, she's still alive."

"Did I not make myself clear about your objectives?"

"Yes, you made yourself abundantly clear. If the truck didn't kill her, then I would. But circumstances got in the way. Something's come up, something that may change your mind."

"You agreed to carry out my plan. This was not part of that plan."

"Sir, I've come across some information on her injuries."

"I'm listening."

"It seems she got a nasty bump on the head. Apparently she's lost all her memories of the past three years."

"You're saying she has no idea about my involvement?"

"I will need to confirm that myself, but all indications are that you're correct."

"There's no way of knowing if this will be permanent. She's likely told the writer."

"All true. But I found out another interesting fact in her medical chart-Detective Beckett is pregnant."

"Well, now, that evens things out a bit. Leverage. You've made the right decision calling me. Hold the plan for now

. Keep an eye on her. See if this is real, if it's going to last."

"Consider it done."

**# * # * # * #**

**Author's note: To everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and favorited this story, thank you. You cannot know how much it means to me that you are reading and enjoying this enough to come back for more. Plenty of plot is yet to come.**

**Alex, you are truly a wonder. Motivator, distractor, co-conspirator—I keep feeling like you deserve bigger, longer titles than "beta reader." Are we really up to FIVE rounds of Margarita's? **

**-Kate**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	4. Chapter 4

**Rewound Chapter Four**

Kate awoke to darkness, the only light a soft blue glow from her IV pump, the red blink of the call button on her bed. Even in the eerie shadows, she knew it was Castle sleeping soundly, awkwardly draped over her bed, his large hands keeping hers warm, his breath puffing lightly against her fingertips.

Surprised that pain wasn't her first sensation, she gave a tentative stretch, a turn of her head. The movement was not enough to wake her partner, but sufficient to test her body, feel the stab of complaint from her left wrist, the stiffness already creeping into that shoulder and elbow.

But her head didn't throb. And her mind wasn't as clouded. Her eyes, quickly becoming accustomed to the relative darkness, focused on the wall clock. A little after four in the morning. Remembering Josh's stories about surgical rounds starting hours before dawn, she guessed it wouldn't be long before her doctors began tapping on her door, switching on lights, poking and prodding. Asking _more_ questions.

For hours all they had done was ask questions. Could she remember why she was here? What was the date? Who was the President? What was her address? Could she please count backward from one hundred by sevens?

The last one had not been received kindly.

And at the end of the barrage, to be told by this team of strangers that she was missing _three years?_ Three years of her life were just gone, possibly never to return? Incredulous was too peaceful a term. Looking to Castle, where he had stood in the back with an enigmatic expression, she had nearly laughed aloud when she realized that she was hoping for some hare-brained theory, an alternate explanation involving alien abduction or mind control, anything other than the possibility that she had _forgotten her life_. But the dullness in his eyes had said it all. He believed their words to be true.

So much of the rest of the night was a blur. All the medication, the lingering anesthesia, the pain in her head had conspired to keep her off her game. But one memory from just after she returned from her MRI stood out clear as crystal, etched in her brain by the man sleeping soundly beside her right hip.

Returning to her room so physically tired, emotionally exhausted, ready to drop from the incessant, pulsing _hurt_ that had filtered into every aspect of her consciousness, she had been grateful for the grogginess of the drugs. But her neurologist had come in to tell her the results of the test, waking her up enough with the good news to make her aware of all the aching discomfort yet again.

Castle had helped her to sit, readjusted her pillows, gown, sheet, blankets. The way he moved around her bed, his confidence when he touched her-they were practiced, comfortable. The two of them had been neither of those whenever they had been in physical contact in the past. The insecurity, the hesitancy brought on by that ever-present electric sense of anticipation-it was gone from his hands.

And when she was settled again, the lights turned down, he had sat at her bedside and looked into her eyes.

"Kate, do you remember anything right after... After you were shot?"

Unable to read his expression, she had gone with the truth.

"You tackled me. I remember hitting the ground. I remember you above me, telling me to stay with you."

His eyes had widened at that, as if he wasn't expecting that detail. When he spoke again, his voice had come as a whisper.

"And do you remember what else I said?"

Swallowing down the rising panic, she had tried to look away, to find a way to say "no," but he had been right there, in her way, pleading with that look she couldn't resist. His hand had curled around the edge of the blanket, right next to hers, as if he were forcing himself not to touch her. And her defenses had come down. She couldn't lie.

"Yes."

His eyes closed for a beat, and she knew that his shaky inhale was fighting off tears.

"Good. Remember it, whatever else happens. Promise me."

The look he had given her was more than fear; it was desperation. She couldn't say no.

"I... I promise."

So he had stayed with her, all night long, holding her hand as she slept. Even though she had railed at him along with the doctors for saying her memory was missing. Even though she had refused to speak to him about anything from those lost years. Even though she had told him to leave at every turn.

Probing her thoughts, she tried again to remember something, anything about all this missing time. Obviously Castle was still a part of her life after three years. And the lack of Josh's presence told her she must have finally done the right thing and let the man go. But how close were she and her partner now? Close enough that he thought she could handle his, "I love you." Well, she wasn't so sure.

"You're thinking so loudly I can't sleep over here."

His voice, though a whisper, was startling in the quiet of the room. His head and shoulders rose from the bed, hands disengaging as he slowly rolled his neck, stretched his arms and back, scrubbed at his face, mussed his hair.

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"How are you feeling?"

The curves and planes of his face were outlined as if underwater, lit by the ghostly twilight of her room, but the darkness couldn't hide the real question behind his words. Which version of Kate had woken up this morning?

"My head hurts less. And I'm thinking more clearly, as you pointed out."

Evading. It was the coward's way out, and she knew it, but he would probably let her get away with it. He always did.

"Do you remember any more?"

Or maybe not. This Castle had surprised her more than once since she'd woken from surgery, and not just with the hand-holding and the constant presence. These differences were subtle: calling her out, pushing farther, asking more of her than he ever would have before.

Showing his hand.

The hope in his eyes dissolved with the slight shake of her head.

"That's okay. It'll come back, Kate. You'll get it all back."

"How can you be so sure?"

"That's how I'd write it."

"This isn't one of your books, Castle."

Squeezing her hand again briefly before letting it fall back to the mattress, he seemed to find something in her expression to grab on to instead.

"No, it's ours. And we get to write it however we want. You told me that."

"I did?"

His faraway look gave way to a tiny, crooked smile.

"You did."

There was a story there. And she could tell it was a good one. From the look of things, there were probably a lot of stories. It was time she faced them.

"What are we to each other now?"

His eyes shuttered, features hardened instantly at those words.

"Are you sure you want to have this conversation?"

No, she would rather pretend none of this was real, go back to sleep, and wake up in some other reality where no one died, no one got shot or hit so hard on the head that their whole life disappeared. But with this new day had come some clarity-if she believed nothing else in the world, she believed him. And so, she would let him tell the story. But he seemed to need some encouragement. Wasn't that unusual? Well, she could step up.

"We're obviously... more... than we were before."

Her mind replayed the fight that seemed like only yesterday, him accusing her of hiding in relationships with men she didn't love, telling her he was her partner, her friend.

But then he'd tried to take a bullet for her.

Had she really been so blind? Montgomery, Royce both had said-oh God.

They were gone. Both of them were gone.

The shooting-she had been speaking at Roy's funeral.

"I just remembered..."

Hope flashed bright across his face.

"What? What did you remember?"

"Roy-he's gone."

No doubt she would get used to watching the light go out of his eyes every time her Swiss-cheesed memory disappointed him.

"He is."

Taking a steadying breath, she forced out the next words.

"I want to know about what happened after; who shot me, all of it."

"I can tell you, just not today, okay?"

That look wasn't just sadness. That look was fear. And uncertainty. And she had plenty of both without dragging more out of him. There would be time for all of it. Eventually.

"No, not today," she agreed. "Today I want to know about us. There is still an 'us,' isn't there?"

The pause felt like an eternity. For all her fear of intimacy with this man, what was proving more terrifying was the possibility that he had moved on.

"There is."

Finding something about her cast utterly fascinating, he refused to meet her eyes.

"And you're more than my partner."

Her hand found his, hooked a finger around his thumb, finally drew his focus back.

"I am."

His other hand reached into the pocket of his jeans.

"Good morning Ms. Beckett."

The sing-song voice rang out as a slice of hallway light splashed over her bed. The sharp knock came as almost an afterthought, or perhaps a warning, as the overhead light flared to life, shocking her eyes and jolting her bruised head. Castle was out of his chair and pacing by the window before the petite blonde had made it across the room.

"I'm Dr. Wells' nurse practitioner, here to check on your hand."

Kate stifled a groan. No doubt this day would only get worse before it got better.

# * # * # * #

The surgeons had blessed her, the internist had reviewed all her results with her, and the psychiatrist had deferred to her personal physician, a "Dr. Burke." Castle said she had started seeing Burke after she'd been shot, and apparently she'd liked him well enough to continue seeing him until long after her departmental mandate had been met.

Castle had stayed away all day, letting her father, Lanie, the boys, and even Martha and Alexis fill the chair beside her bed in between visits from all the medical professionals. No one had actually mentioned her memory. They had obviously been coached.

She had heard Castle's voice in the hall outside her room a few times, getting updates, she assumed. He needed to go home, but Lanie told her that when the neurologist suggested she might be allowed to leave later that evening, he had insisted on staying.

The light tap on her door preceded the entrance of a new face. This man was tall, dark, with a kind, if reserved, smile.

"Hello, Detective Beckett."

His voice, so deep, so mellow, eased her nerves, even after only three short words of greeting. His hand was broad, his grip firm as they shook hands.

"You must be Dr. Burke."

"May I?"

He gestured toward the chair at her bedside.

"Please."

Kate still couldn't believe she would choose to see a therapist again. When her mother died, she had despised the counseling, wary of discussing any personal details, much less her grief, with a perfect stranger. Back then, she had seen it through despite the intrusiveness, the seemingly pointless rehashing, the magnification of insignificant details until it seemed as if every thought in her head had a double meaning. She had done it all because the other alternative, completely falling apart as her father had done, had not been an option. So she had swallowed it like bitter medicine, and at the end, swore she would never set foot in another therapist's office again.

"Castle tells me I've been seeing you for almost three years."

"You're wondering why."

It wasn't a question, so she didn't offer an answer.

"After you were shot, the NYPD made you see me so that I could clear you for duty. I did, after three months or so, but you came back."

Crossing one long leg over the other, he got comfortable in the chair, apparently in no hurry with this visit. Lovely.

"Kate, you have PTSD."

"What?"

That got her attention. Trying to sit up a little too fast, she was forced to abort the movement when her cast got tangled in her gown, and she caught her breath in a gasp at the sudden sharp stab of pain in her wrist. Burke started to jump up, concern quickly replacing calm.

"Are you alright? Would you like me to go get your nurse?"

Waving him off with her good hand, she collected herself, slanted a look at him from under her lashes.

"I do not have post-traumatic stress disorder."

A wan smile crossed his lips.

"It's good to know that some things never change."

None of this was even remotely making sense.

"What are you talking about?"

"You had a similar reaction the first time I diagnosed you."

Smug bastard. What the hell kind of psychiatrist was he, anyway? No-account hack from the NYPD payroll.

"Well that would be because it isn't _true_."

Resuming his former relaxed pose, his face went neutral, but his eyes engaged.

"I've seen your chart. In the MRI scanner last night? The panic attack you had was a classic example. Irrational response triggered by stress, confinement, loud noise. You can't deny that it happened this time; there were witnesses."

Well, damn.

"Has that... happened to me before?"

"It has. Though not in a very long time, at least not to that degree of severity."

"Did it happen... on the job?"

"In the beginning, yes."

"So I went to you to fix it."

His slight nod was the only response she got.

"And you did. So you can do it again. And get my memory back, while you're at it. That's why you're here."

"Kate, I didn't _fix_ your PTSD. You learned strategies to control the symptoms, ways to cope once a panic attack started. You got better; you could do your job, live a normal life, but you weren't cured. And I don't have a crystal ball. I have no way of knowing when, or if, your memory is going to come back."

"Then what good are you?"

"I guess that's up to you to decide. Now I'm sure the department can recommend a different therapist, but you're going to have to see someone. I already know your history, what worked for you and what didn't. That might help smooth some of the bumps this time. But it's your choice."

His logic was tough to deny. Having this concrete link to her memory, however aggravating his bedside manner might be, could be her best chance to get it back. Could be her only chance.

"Fine."

"Excellent. I'll see you in my office on Friday."

"Where exactly is your office?"

"I'm sure Mr. Castle remembers."

Wait, what? Castle had been to her psychiatrist's office? As in _with her_? The shock on her face must have registered with Burke, because he tipped his head slightly to the side, narrowed his eyes.

"What are your plans when you leave the hospital, Kate?"

That was quite a shift in subject. What was he getting at, anyway? Her surgeon suggested she have help for a while with her wrist, since she was not allowed to bear weight on that arm or hand. She hadn't really thought much about whom she would ask.

"I'll probably just stay with my father for a while."

The man's dark eyes went wide. If she didn't know better, she would have said she saw a flare of anger behind them, but not directed at her?

"Have you spoken with Mr. Castle about that yet?"

This was getting stranger by the moment. Why would she need to talk to Castle about staying at her dad's?

"No, why?"

"Because I think he might have an opinion on the subject."

With that enigmatic answer, he unfolded himself from the chair and reached for her hand, clasped it with confidence.

"I look forward to renewing our acquaintance, Detective Beckett."

For a psychiatrist, this man certainly didn't inspire clarity. But she recognized genuine affection when she saw it. She might be able to tolerate him after all.

"Likewise."

There was a tentative tap on her door only a few minutes later, followed by the appearance of her partner, who was looking a little pale as he crossed to her chair, moved first to sit, then at the last moment decided to stay standing.

Pacing to the window, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, pretended to be engrossed in the facade of the building across the street. And then just as quickly, he was pacing back, dropping into the chair, planting his elbows on his knees, looking anywhere but at her.

"What has you all worked up?"

His fingers laced together, flexed, unlaced again, eyes firmly fixed on the linoleum.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

Even with three years of her life missing, she could read those tells.

"Uh, Dr. Burke stopped to say hello on his way out."

Something told her she'd found the object of that flash of anger from just before Burke stepped out. Fighting against an unexplainable urge to grin at the image of Castle being reamed by the seemingly mild-mannered doctor, she quirked an eyebrow instead. The man must have another side, if the state of Castle's nerves was any indication. Maybe Burke and she were going to get along just fine.

"Really?"

"Yeah. He, uh, pointed out that I should probably mention... something to you before you get discharged."

God, could he twitch any more blatantly? His knee was bouncing against the bed railing.

"Okay..."

"So, you remember your apartment?"

Oh, _ouch_, damn it, it actually hurt to roll her eyes.

"Of course I remember my apartment. Castle, just spit it out. What's going on?"

"You don't exactly _live_ in your apartment anymore."

Now he was poking at the edge of her blanket where it had come loose from under the mattress. This whole conversation was verging on the ridiculous.

"What? Don't tell me this one exploded, too."

That prompted a single huff of laughter, but no lessening of the tension bunching at his shoulders.

"No. No, it didn't explode."

Oh for God's sake, the man never shut up, and now he couldn't string two sentences together?

"Well, then, what happened? Where _do _I live?"

His lips pressed together in a thin line before he finally shifted his eyes up to look at her.

Oh, that was _not _a good look. Not a good look at all. A cold, slippery tendril of fear unfurled in the pit of her stomach. Something told her she was not going to like this answer one bit.

Castle took a deep breath and came clean.

"For about the past six months or so, you've been living at the loft, with me."

Well, damn.

Cohabitation certainly qualified as _more._

Sex. They were having sex. And she had forgotten possibly_ three years worth of sex._

That should not have been the first thought that popped into her head. Her first thought should have been panic at no longer having her own home, her own privacy, her own life. It should have been terror at the idea of dealing with this man, this hyperactive, immature, needy, often annoying man twenty-four hours a day. But what had her brain decided to fix upon?

Images of all the wild sex she had ever fantasized about having with him flashed through her mind in a kind of naughty newsreel.

But focusing in on his face, still stricken with dread, she realized there was something else he wanted to say. His hand had made its way into the pocket of his jeans, and her eye was drawn to it, followed it as it pulled the crumpled plastic bag out onto his lap, pulled open the edges, reached inside.

When he withdrew that hand, his fingers were fisted tight around something small. Turning his fist over, holding it out between them, he was actually trembling.

Finding his eyes, she caught the flicker of uncertainty behind liquid blue, took in the resolute set of his jaw, the shadows over his cheeks. Whatever this was, it was serious.

Clearing his throat, he spoke again, voice low and remarkably smooth.

"And then you let me give you this."

Her eyes dropped to his hand, where she half-expected to find a key to his loft. But her heart stuttered and began to pound, breath halted in her lungs when his fingers uncurled. As the gravity of his revelation exerted itself, she felt the walls begin to close in, the oxygen diffuse from the room.

Because the silvery circle cradling sparkling stones offered up so reverently in the center of his palm wasn't just _more_-it was _everything_.

**# * # * # * #**

**Author's Note: I'm a little late on this chapter; Dr. Worf was being reticent. I hope you're all still on board with this little adventure. Thank you for every comment, tweet, re-blog, follow, and favorite. I, for one, am having a blast writing this, thanks in great part to my beta extraordinaire, Alex. She sort of doubles as my Dr. Worf, too. And thank you to Joy, for… reasons. There will be a tequila reckoning VERY SOON!**

**As always, more to come.**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	5. Chapter 5

**Rewound Chapter Five**

She knew she had let him down.

Sitting in the back of the car, not really seeing out the tinted window into the dark of Manhattan night, that feeling of guilt surged to the forefront as she replayed the scene over in her mind yet again.

Limbs and lips frozen, she had stared at the engagement ring in Castle's hand. This was _her ring._ At some point in the last six months, he had pulled this out of his pocket and asked her to marry him. And she had said yes. But this time, he had sat shaking with fear before her, just hoping, well she didn't know what exactly he had been hoping for, but she couldn't take the ring.

Not now. Not without whatever had happened between them, whatever had happened to her over the last three years. Something from that time had allowed her first reaction to the idea of marriage with him to shift from her current desperate panic to hope, to joy. Otherwise, she wouldn't have said "yes"; of that she was certain.

Not even able to reach out and touch the bright, shiny object, she had blinked up at him and prayed he would understand. She wasn't saying no. She had already said yes.

But not now.

"Castle, I need you to hold on to this for me. Keep it safe, until I'm the me whose finger you put it on the first time."

There was moisture pooling at his lashes, but he had found a way to nod, clear his throat, and close his hand gently around the band again.

"I can do that."

Saying those words had reopened some old wound; she could see it plainly at the time. But he had gathered his emotions and tucked them away along with the ring, completely hidden from her view.

The last of her discharge paperwork had been completed just as her dinner tray arrived. After the man delivering it had stepped out and the door shut behind him, they shared a knowing look, both speaking simultaneously.

"Chinese."

That had brought a real smile to his face-the first one in hours, or maybe longer.

Now, they were almost back to his loft-_their_ loft. God, why did this have to be so _hard_? Knowing she had lived a certain life was one thing; actually experiencing this disembodied sense that everything around her was a tiny bit _off_, well, it made her skin crawl.

Castle had left her in the warm car to wait with the driver while he filled her prescriptions at some pharmacy she had never seen before. Actually, from the outside it looked more like a new-age hippie store full of chi-balancing supplements and seaweed smoothies to cleanse various bodily organs. There was a poster in the window about Chakras.

But they were close to... home, and Castle had insisted this was the quickest place. Emerging from the door with a canvas bag in one hand and a plastic cup containing something decidedly orange in the other, Castle proved himself correct on the speed of service.

Opening the door and settling into the seat beside her, he handed off the cup.

"Here, this has lots of antioxidants to speed healing. And it's mango. You like mango. Try it."

Eyeing the smoothie warily, looking for any sign of wheat grass, she gave the straw a tentative sip.

Not bad, actually, not that she would tell him that of course...

"What is that place?"

"Zen Vitamin? I go there all the time to get coffee-they have this Columbian stuff that they import themselves and roast in the back. God, it's like liquid sex. You love it, even though you won't set foot in there. The one time I brought you by, you said it was a 'New-age hippie store,' if I remember correctly. They opened last year. Oh, and the smoothies are to die for, am I right?"

It was a damn good smoothie, and she hadn't really eaten much in the hospital in the last twenty four hours. Oh wow, she had sucked down half of it without even realizing.

"Not bad. Tastes healthy."

"It's good for pr-actically any kind of injury, wound healing, all that."

Hmm. That was his "I just almost said something really stupid and then saved myself" face. But she let it go; he was probably having to edit half of his external monologue to keep from spooking her with their level of intimacy-liquid sex and all. Nudging the bag with her knee, she tried to peer inside.

"So what's all that?"

"Prescription pain medication, Tylenol, some of those little gauze squares the nurse was putting between your cast and your skin. Oh, and garbage bags and waterproof tape."

Showering. She had forgotten all about showering. Oh, crap. Maybe she could manage with one hand... Shelving that thought until the time came, she set down the almost-empty smoothie cup and reached for the door handle. As they pulled up to the curb in front of his building, she shoved open the door with her good arm.

Her wrist was starting to ache, the padded sling chafing at her neck. As she shifted to get out of the car, something in the angle or the torque hit her wrong, and she let out a little grunt of pain, was forced to stop and shut her eyes to get on top of it. Before she opened them, he was on the curb in front of her, reaching for her good arm and leaning in to hook his under it. Wrapping his hand around her ribcage, he eased her up and out of the back seat.

"Hey, let me help you, okay. It's my job. Partners, right?"

Something in his voice that she couldn't quite define told her just how painful it was to put them back on those terms. She ought to be grateful, though. After all, he was doing it for her.

There was something about accepting help from him that didn't sit right in her gut. Doing her best to shove all of that down, she nodded. But she stood tall, tried not to lean on that warm, steady strength, tried not to let the tenderness of his gentle hold sink in.

Castle was not her fiance. This was not his job. And she wasn't this needy, weak victim clutching at his overcoat and canting into his side for support. Kate Beckett was stronger than this, tougher. Kate Beckett didn't show this to anyone.

"I've already seen it, Kate."

His lips were near her ear, breath brushing over the curve of her jaw, startling her with their nearness.

"I know you don't remember, but I swear to you, I've seen you... fall. You even let me catch you once, a long time ago. So just stop it with the brave soldier act and let me help."

Somehow, knowing she had lost her dignity in front of him but not remembering a single detail of it only made matters worse.

An unfamiliar doorman pushed open the lobby door at their approach.

"Thank you, Clarence."

The tall, middle-aged man sped around them to the elevator and pushed the button to call it.

"Ms. Beckett, I hope you feel better real soon. If there's anything you need, you let me know."

Obviously this man knew her; she tried for a smile, hoped it came off as genuine.

"Thank you."

As the doors closed, leaving them alone again, Castle let go of her to fish out his keys, juggling the supplies and the plastic bag with her belongings from the hospital.

"That was Clarence. Started a few weeks ago. He's great-always offering to help carry things up. I'm surprised he didn't offer to carry you, actually."

His attempt at humor fell miserably flat; no amount of levity could overcome the fatigue, mental and physical, that was starting to sink in after so many hours of adrenaline.

Finally giving up his one-handed search, he set the bags down to dig further into his pockets and succeeded in locating the key ring.

"I can carry one of the bags."

Jingling the brass objects as he flipped through for the correct one, he gave her a quick sideways glance.

"It's hurting you to stand up right now. I'm not letting you carry bags."

How did he even know that? She thought she was doing a pretty good job of hiding it.

"I learned a lot more of your tells in the last three years, Kate. And I can see when you're lying to me, so don't bother denying that you're in pain."

When the doors opened on his floor, he stepped out first, started down the hall with both bags.

"Let's get you settled on the couch, and you can take your next dose of pain meds as soon as the food gets here. Or even now if you want-I can get you something to snack on so you don't take them on an empty stomach."

Couch?

Damn it. She _had_ said she wanted food back at the hospital.

But at this moment, rolling her shoulders futilely trying to work out a kink, all she could think about was curling into her bed, quiet and dark and alone, until she could get herself back under control, until everything started to make sense again.

If anything could ever make sense again after all of this.

Her fingertips pressed into center of her forehead, massaged the crease she could feel forming there. Her headache was back, nagging just behind her left temple, and her hand and wrist were now fully throbbing, her whole shoulder and back stiffening, muscles cramping because of the damn confinement of this sling and the cast, and they said it would be weeks before she could get it off, before she could even move her hand, and on top of all of it, she was not even able to go back to her own home...

His key was turning in the lock, shoulder nudging open the heavy door when the first tears pooled.

She would _not_ cry right now. She would _not_ break down in his hallway like some pathetic, helpless child who missed her own bed and wanted-oh, the wish sliced through her heart with amazing clarity and speed. She wanted her mom.

That single thought broke her resolve, and a tear spilled over each cheek, leaving matching trails of shining, flushed embarrassment in their wake.

Castle must have noticed she had yet to follow him in, because he reappeared only seconds later, arms free of bags. Dragging the sleeve of her button-down over her now-flaming cheeks, she swallowed hard, tried to blink back the rest of the moisture.

His eyes were kind, lips pressed together as if actively holding back whatever words of comfort or panic wanted to emerge. The man was trying so hard; she could at least be honest with him.

"I don't know how to do this. I know I'm supposed to come inside and sit on your couch and feel right at home, but it's not _my_ home, not the one I remember. And I know I'm supposed to let you take care of me, but I don't _know_ you that way, and it doesn't feel... _right_... to be such a mess around you."

The tips of his loafers were just edging over the threshold, that line in the sand that divided the life she remembered from the one they had built. Keeping her focus there, she waited in the heavy silence, counted his breaths, stayed rooted to the spot, unable to move.

"Kate, just come inside. Please? I don't... I can take you to your dad's if you want me to; we can call him right now. But please come in. Let me at least help you pack a bag, feed you before you... go."

That would probably be best. Her dad would leave her alone, let her figure out how to deal with... everything. And then at least she wouldn't be a constant reminder to Castle of all the things she'd forgotten. It would be easier for them both if she wasn't right under his nose.

Finding his eyes, her words of agreement froze on her lips. His face had gone pale: eyes dull, features tightly-controlled. There was more to this than she knew; he didn't have the monopoly on reading tells.

Stepping toward him, she did as he asked, and he made way.

The loft looked similar, but there were changes-things she couldn't quite put her finger on. And then she saw her chair, the one from her living room with the ottoman. It was right there, across from his couch.

As she surveyed the room, he grabbed the bags and headed into his office.

The books. One whole panel of his see-through bookcase was full of her books.

Trailing along behind him, she saw Castle duck through a door. Must be the bedroom; she hadn't been past his office before.

Passing through into his workspace, she nearly stumbled when she saw it. Her gray couch, complete with her favorite Union Jack pillow, had replaced the leather sofa she had seen in this corner.

"Mother took the other one."

Kate wheeled around, making her arm smart a bit.

"Martha moved out?"

"A few months before you moved in. We put your office in her old room, actually. You liked the light in there better than the guest room. Said you wanted Alexis to still have hers just like she left it."

Seeing all of her things here was eerie, but the thought of having them around her took some of the edge off her frazzled nerves.

"Do you want to come tell me what you want me to pack for you?"

So dejected. Defeated. It just didn't sound like him.

"Oh, sure."

As they entered his bedroom, all dark wood and deep reds, her eye snagged on something familiar. Her Alex Gross painting covered an entire wall.

"I'll tell you about the negotiations for that sometime."

Turning to face where he stood inside the large walk-in closet, she found a sad hint of a grin on his lips. An empty, unzipped duffel hung from one hand, and he was headed for a row of hangers full of jeans, slacks, button-downs, all neatly pressed and lined up on one wall. Her jackets stood out on the rack above, shoes arranged on a set of shelves to one side.

This surreal merging of their things gave her an odd, dissociated feeling, as though this whole world were a dream, an imaginary place that her subconscious had populated with random things from both their lives. Pinching herself would do no good, though. This was reality now. And she couldn't run away from it.

"Put the bag away."

Continuing to carefully fold a pair of dark jeans and then tuck them into the bottom, he didn't seem to be following.

"What?"

Stepping in between him and the rack of clothes, she curled her fingers around the handle of the case, met his question with all the false bravery she could muster.

"I said put the bag away. I'm not going to my dad's."

His brow lowered almost imperceptibly, and a flicker of something like hope brightened the blue eyes that searched her face. When he spoke, his voice was tight, almost a whisper.

"Are you sure?"

Sensing that so much more than she could comprehend was hanging on her answer, she took a breath, let the air, thick with words left unsaid, fill her lungs, let his hope shore up her resolve. If her voice trembled, it probably wouldn't be the last time.

"This is my home. I'm staying here."

# * # * # * #

**Author's note: Readers, you are amazing-every single one of you. Thank you for finding me and this story. Alex, thank you for alternately chasing me off of Twitter and distracting me with Ellen DeGeneres stand-up routines as needed. I might be able to write this without you, but it would be a lot less fun, and I'd be a lot more insane by the end... And Joy, I'll be there in half an hour!**

**-Kate**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	6. Chapter 6

**Rewound Chapter Six**

The ceiling was proving entirely uninspiring. But after a good half hour of staring at the decorative lamp on one bedside table, burying his face in the lavender-scented down pillow case, and watching the digital display tick torturously deeper into the darkest hours of early morning, he had flipped to his fourth and final option-his back.

Any other night, he would have rolled to his left and curled an arm around Kate, nuzzled into that spot on the back of her neck just at her hairline, soothed himself with the scent of her hair, the feel of her warm curves pressed against him.

But tonight, and for the foreseeable future, if he was truly honest with himself, he was in the guest bedroom, cold and alone.

And although the situation was not ideal, it was so much better than the alternative to which he had resigned himself earlier that night. His heart physically hurt at the memory of packing that bag, standing there, watching her trying to absorb all of the details that, taken together, represented _their_ life. She perceived them as drastic changes; he had seen the anxiety swirling behind her careful mask of calm.

In those few minutes, three months of torture played through his mind: the sleepless nights wondering how she felt or where she was, the weeks of unreasonable jealousy-hatred even-for the man he thought had won her for good, and in the end, the sinking silence of bitterness toward Kate for shutting him out.

Though he hadn't thought of those dark days in years, the images had apparently been burned on his memory forever. It had taken almost no time for that desolation to seep back into his heart.

Her sudden reversal had left him stunned, open and raw. She wanted to be here, _with him_. Kate was terrified, unsure, vulnerable-all the things she hated most in herself, but still she had _stayed_. Relief had washed over him like a wave, soft and warm.

The night had been less awkward than he had imagined, possibly because he had spent the remainder of it glowing over her mere presence. Gravitating toward the familiar, she had settled into the corner of her couch, allowed him to prop her arm on a stack of pillows and fetch and carry for her for the rest of the night. Though she had initially demurred on the Chinese food, watching him bust open cartons and have at the lo mein and kung pao had tempted her, and she managed the chopsticks just fine once she had a carton in her lap.

Two extra strength Tylenol and a few surreptitious yawns later, his suggestion of a shower and his offer of help with pajamas had been summarily rejected. Keeping the yoga pants and soft cotton button-down on to sleep in had probably been about her pride, or embarrassment, or both, but it wouldn't do any good for him to forget that from her perspective, he had never seen her body, and she had never seen his. There were no memories of hot, slippery sex in their shower, nor of countless nights, mornings, afternoons when he had peeled her clothes from her body, explored every curve and scar.

Ugh. This was doing him no good either, thinking about so much skin, so much nearness.

Kate had protested his proposal of sleeping arrangements at first, but in the end it had been the words of her neurologist and psychiatrist earlier that day that had won the argument for him: familiar surroundings, things she would recognize and take comfort in. The only time she had slept in the guest room had been after her first apartment exploded-not exactly a comforting memory. She had spent two years sleeping in the king-sized bed downstairs, had picked out the sheets and blankets and duvet with him, had her crazy painting right there on the wall to wake up to every morning.

When she independently chose her usual side of the bed, his heart gave a tiny, illogical cheer. By the time he had the nest of pillows arranged around her, a glass of water within reach, and the nightlight on in the bathroom, he was at peace with sleeping in another room, another bed. It was for the best; she deserved some privacy. At least she was still here.

But now, hours later, thoughts of her lying motionless in the recovery room bed, writhing in fear on that MRI table, crying and lost in his hallway, began shuffling through his head again. Once they had started, he knew he was done flirting with sleep. Usually, the racing scenes would be welcome-a spurt of inspiration for his current chapter of _Heat Lightening _that would send him to his laptop until daybreak. These images only inspired cold, sick dread in the pit of his stomach.

Even though he knew it was an absolutely irrational worry, he still could not shake the idea that something bigger was going on with Kate's accident. The call from Ryan and Esposito earlier that evening had done nothing to quell the stirrings of anxiety. The truck that had plowed into her car was not where the company said it should be. The boys were sure it was a simple administrative glitch-the delivery group had hundreds of trucks, a dozen lots spread over five boroughs. They would find the truck in one of them, get it checked over, confirm the faulty brakes, "Just to be sure." Castle knew that meant, "Just because we love you, because this is one of your crazy CIA conspiracy theories."

Still, he was in their debt for being careful, even if they were just honoring friendship.

A likeness of 3XK snuck in from his subconscious. The man had not died in that water, no matter what Kate had insisted. It had taken him nearly a year and three lock changes on top of the sweep for spy equipment in his building to get him comfortable in his own home again. The paranoia had kept him from asking Kate to move in for the better part of that year. How could he ask her to share a space with him when that space had obviously been compromised?

And then there was Bracken. Their uneasy detente had been maintained for almost a year, and in their last contact, he'd acknowledged owing her "a favor," but with elections coming up in the fall, he wouldn't put anything past that monster.

Innumerable other murderers or their associates could have it out for her. Some had enough money and connections in the world of organized crime to pull off this sort of operation, even if they, themselves, were still on the inside. And every time he thought about losing Kate, there was a new, massive source of worry to occupy his every waking thought. They were pregnant. They were going to have a baby, and she didn't even know it yet. Granted, she might not have known at this point regardless of her accident, but still, this was her body, growing a new life. She deserved to know.

The only thing holding him back had been the thought that the news might tip her over emotionally, which the hospital psychiatrist had discussed with him at length. Even the OB-GYN had been brought into the conversation right after Kate awoke without her memory. The woman had been very clear about every person on the team knowing about Kate's pregnancy, taking all precautions, and she had been equally absolute on her stance that Kate be told as soon as possible. The only reason she had agreed to waiting for a day, two at most, was that she had witnessed her patient's panic attack in the MRI scanner. The doctor was had been confronted with the reality of Kate's PTSD, her potential for instability. The neurologist was optimistic about the possibility that as the pressure on her brain from the concussion decreased, Kate might regain her memory quite quickly, and if so, she would be much better able to handle the news. But Kate still hadn't remembered, and now that left it to him to tell her. The prospect was so daunting, he hadn't even thought about how to go about it.

Damn it. There was too much at stake here for nervousness and modesty and separate bedrooms. Flinging back the covers, he stood and began to pace, fingers threading through his hair. If someone had been savvy enough to plan an "accident" like what he had been imagining, they could get into his building, find her sleeping alone, finish the damn job while he was sound asleep in the _guest room. _While his _wife_ was being stalked and murdered in _their_ bed, he would be twiddling his oblivious thumbs _upstairs._

Okay, maybe she wasn't quite his wife yet, but if it had been up to him, they'd have eloped the week he proposed. Kate had wanted to get married at the Hamptons house in the summer; have everyone up for the week, make it special. And who was he to deny a wish from the woman who had sworn off wishing? He would give her whatever wedding she wanted.

Would she even _want _a wedding now? Much less a week of celebrating with family and friends, some of whom she might not even remember?

Enough. This was still his home, and he could... pace... wherever he wanted.

The floor was cool under his bare feet as he made his way along the dark hallway and down the stairs. Her exhaustion would protect him-he would just take a very quick, quiet peek in on her, make sure there was no assassin about to pounce, and then curl up on the couch. At least there he would be in sight of the bedroom door.

The soft click of the door handle reverberated in the silent room, but he could see no signs of wakefulness in the outline of her form, delineated by the silvery moonbeams floating through the blinds.

Kate was always beautiful. But at moments like this, in the quiet of deepest night, when it seemed they were the only two people alive in the universe, she took on an otherworldly glow, stealing his breath, stopping his heart with the realization that she was his and his alone.

His hands gripped the hem of his t-shirt, impotent, wanting the feel of her warm skin under his fingers. Someday. Someday he would have her back. For now, at least he had her with him.

"Are you going to stand there staring all night, or are you coming in?"

His brows shot up when her voice broke his reverie. Despite her closed lids, she must have been awake all along. Stepping gingerly through the cracked door, he pulled it closed behind him, took a hesitant step toward her.

"I just wanted to... check on you... see if you needed anything?"

Her lashes parted, irises catching the moon glow as she focused on him.

"Couldn't sleep either?"

Well, she could always read him. No point in subterfuge now. He took a step closer, still barely away from the door.

"No."

Blinking up at him from her perch, surrounded by piles of pillows, hair fanned out in an ebony arc around her face, left arm propped up at her side, sheets and blankets and comforter swathing her, she seemed to float suspended on a cloud.

Inclining her head slightly to her right, she wet her lips and glanced at the other side of the bed.

"You're still staring, and it's still creepy, Castle."

Recoiling slightly, he began his retreat, pointing vaguely over his shoulder as he backed away.

"Sorry. I'm just going to go back to bed. Unless you need water, or another dose of medicine, or something."

"Not right now. But... I might, later."

"Oh, well, okay, I can stay right outside, on the couch, where I can hear you if you need me."

The door was open, and he was inching through it when he heard the lilt of a tease in her tone.

"I don't know, if you're a heavy sleeper, you might not hear me from all the way out in the living room."

Was she- oh, she was.

"Heaviest sleeper ever. Out like a light, down for the count."

"Well, then maybe you should just-" she side-glanced the empty spot beside her again. "It's a big bed."

"That it is."

Her eyebrow rose, appraising him from across the room.

"Think you can behave yourself and stay on your side?"

"Absolutely."

His earnest tone and innocent expression won him an eye roll-and an invitation.

"Come on."

All of three seconds later he was gingerly sliding under the covers on his side, taking care not to jostle the mattress enough to disturb her arm.

Keeping decidedly to his side, he turned to face her, let his eyes trace her profile once more before they closed.

"If you snore, I will kick you."

The smile tugged at his lips even as he refused to open his eyes. With them closed, he could imagine her there, whole and happy and snarking about his annoying sleeping habits just as she had on innumerable nights in this very bed.

"I do _not_ snore."

"Don't think because I'm injured I've lost my aim."

His earlier consideration had unwittingly provided her with an ample supply of her favorite, feather-stuffed ammunition. Damn. Chancing it, he cracked open one eye, but found her snuggled down in the blankets, lids closed, breath already starting to even out.

"Good night, Kate."

"Go to sleep, Castle."

And so finally, he did.

# * # * # * #

"Look, I know you don't remember, but I promise, I _have _seen you naked before. _You_ need to shower, and _I _need to put your arm in a bag, and I can't do that with your shirt on."

He was trying and failing to keep the frustration out of his voice.

This woman was going to kill him. That was, if he didn't kill her first. They were having a knock-down, drag-out fight standing in the master bathroom, a pile of dressing supplies, tape, and plastic bags spread over the countertop.

"Castle, I am perfectly capable of doing this by myself. I'm not an invalid. I have a cast on _one _arm. Just get out of here and leave me alone."

When Alexis had broken her arm, Castle had perfected the bag-and-tape technique for showers. He had also learned that girls, especially girls with long hair and recently-injured arms, did not do well with washing their hair alone. At least not at first. There was an art to it, a sort of shower ballet, requiring well-placed bottles with pump tops and a loofah-net-thingy always in reach. After a few days, and some minor shelf installation on his part, Alexis had been able to figure it all out. But for those first few days he had gotten good at washing her hair without getting caught in the shower stream.

As much as he wanted to share this arsenal of knowledge with Beckett, help her avoid the pitfalls and frustration, if he had learned anything in the past six years, it was that once she got an idea in her head, the only person who could get it out was Beckett, herself. Setting her clean change of clothes beside the pile of supplies, he held up his hands in surrender and turned on his heel. She could figure it out for herself.

"Fine. I'll be out here. Call me if you need me."

Fifteen minutes of not really writing later, he heard a loud clatter and sprinted across from his office.

Stopping just outside the door, he paused to listen for signs of life, and heard... A growl?

"You can come in, Castle. I can see your feet under the door."

That was not what he would call an inviting tone of voice. Caution seemed warranted.

When he peered around the edge of the door, he found her sitting on the floor, down to a mostly-unbuttoned shirt and her underwear, a copious amount of waterproof tape tangled around a plastic bag that was stuck to her cast.

"You, uh, need me to, uh..."

"Get in here and help me, already."

While the mental victory dance stayed hidden, he couldn't completely suppress the hint of a smile at the site of her blowing her hair out of her eyes.

"Do _not _gloat. I can see you gloating."

"What? I didn't say a word!"

"The 'I told you so' is beaming out of your eyeballs."

First order of business: off the floor. Circling behind her and catching her under the arms, careful to avoid jostling the cast, he hauled her upright.

"And don't look at my boobs."

"Beckett, as much as I love a good chest-ogle at ten in the morning, I have seen your lovely breasts before. And despite all the evidence to the contrary, I am occasionally capable of controlling my baser instincts."

But he had to admit, it was good to have her pressed to his chest, even if it was only for a moment and for a mechanical purpose. That brief flash of warmth, his nose in her hair, his arms hugging her middle, reminded him of how much he missed holding her. With her injury and then her memory and all the skittishness the night before, he had barely touched her, much less held her since leaving the hospital.

"I'll believe it when I see it."

Realizing his hold on her had probably outlived its purpose, he let her go, cleared his throat, and slipped around to remove the ruined tape and plastic bag.

"That's probably fair."

God, how had she managed to get this so tangled with just one hand?

After liberating her arm from the tape, he started to reach for the edge of her shirt to help slide it off.

"Hey, you can put the bag on without taking off my shirt."

She took a step back out of his reach.

"Yeah, but then I have to get the shirt off without pulling off the bag. Trust me, this way's easier."

Eyeing him warily, she turned her back to him and started to shrug out of the shirt herself. When it caught on her cast, he put his hands lightly on her shoulders, slid the material smoothly away, clearing the edge of the plaster cautiously with her left sleeve and trying not to jostle her arm.

"Can you close your eyes?"

Now he was truly getting frustrated; this was ridiculous. Letting his temper get the better of him, he bellowed at her.

"No, Kate, I cannot attach a plastic bag to your arm with my eyes closed, unless you want it to turn out like your last try! Cover yourself up with this if it makes you feel better."

Snatching her shirt from his hand where he dangled it before her, she shoved her cast in his direction and draped it over her chest as best she could, turning her face away.

The job was done in less than two completely silent minutes, cloth tape neatly affixing the edge of the bag just above her elbow. But just as he was snipping the last piece of tape, her shoulders started to shake.

Oh no. Tears. There were tears. Even though he couldn't see her face, he heard a subtle sniff and saw the shuddering way her ribs expanded when she drew breath. Oh God, he had screwed this up so badly.

The woman he loved more than life itself could have died less than two days ago, and now she was hurt, and frustrated, and acting out just like he should have expected, and instead of being patient and kind, he had yelled at her.

He had _made_ _Kate_ _cry_.

Damn it.

What was he supposed to do to fix this? If she were _his_ Kate, he would take her in his arms and apologize with words and lips and hands, and she would be mad, but she would forgive him. Maybe not without some excellent make-up sex, but eventually he would make it up to her.

But _this_ Kate? No telling what she would do if he even attempted a real hug. Punch him in the gut, maybe. Well, he probably deserved that. And this Kate had no reason to forgive him-ever-regardless of what words he might come up with.

But he couldn't leave her alone, not now, not like this.

"Kate? I'm so sorry. That was... I was... out of line."

Still not facing him, she took in a ragged breath, seemed about to get herself under control, then dropped her head and let out a strangled sob.

Screw her modesty, screw her memory, he couldn't watch this and not touch her.

Putting himself directly in her line of sight, he slowly extended his arm, let his fingers grip her good shoulder.

"Kate, please, I wasn't thinking. I got frustrated. I know this is hard-"

Her head made contact with his shoulder just before her weight fell against him. In an instant he was wrapped around her, her hand that had been clutching the shirt to her chest now trapped between them, clinging to his shirt, instead. And regardless of the circumstances, what he found before him was his mostly-naked fiancé curled into his chest, her hot tears streaming against his neck, her one uninjured arm hanging on to him as best she could.

Even if she didn't remember any of the other times, how could he not comfort her the best way he knew how?

"Hey, hey, hey. It's okay; let it out. It's all my fault; I'm an idiot. Would it make you feel better if you punched me? Because I can totally take it."

His palms stroked wide and warm over her bare back, fingers tangling in her hair.

"Oof!"

Geez, he hadn't actually expected her to take him up on it, but her foot stomped down on top of his big toe with enough force to smart a bit.

He had it coming.

"Better?"

She answered with a watery nod against his chest and a loud sniff.

"Good. You gonna let me wash your hair if I promise not to stare at your chest?"

Another nod.

Unconsciously, he pressed his lips to her forehead, kissed her as he would his fiancé. Though she stiffened, she didn't pull away, just released the handful of shirt and flattened her palm against his chest.

"Listen, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but sometimes I need to say it, so maybe you'd better start getting used to it. And that's why your painting is in there anyway, so you did agree to it once upon a time..." his ramble sort of ran out of steam mid-stream, and he was left with what he'd been leading up to. This required more air in his lungs. His chest expanded on the sharp inhale, just as his eyes closed. "I love you, Kate. I love you so much, and I just want to help. I don't need to hear you say it back, and I don't want you to do anything you aren't comfortable with. The last thing I would ever do is hurt you, so you just have to tell me-"

Her lips stopped his words.

The kiss was chaste, just a brief caress of her mouth on his, but at that moment, it was more than he could have wished for. A first, since everything had changed. His eyes stayed open to find hers closed, lashes nearly brushing his cheeks.

Pulling back, her eyes opened and immediately dropped to the v-neck of his t-shirt, skirted over toward the shower.

"You gonna turn the water on, or what?"

She was still skittish. She didn't remember putting on the ring. Still, stepping into the tiled double stall to turn the knobs, getting the hot water spraying full blast, he couldn't be disappointed. Kate Beckett was letting him in, and that was a victory on any day.

When her hand reached over his shoulder, grabbed the shampoo she usually favored from the shelf, he half expected her to somehow still be clutching a towel to her chest. But as she flipped open the cap and held it out toward his hands, he turned and found her naked, already standing in the water stream. Not that he wasn't affected-he would always be attracted to all that gorgeous, naked skin, flushed with the steam and hot water-but he had his wits about him, could look her in the eye and smile, accept the handful of shampoo and wait for her to wet her hair, turn around, and tip back.

It cleansed them.

Whatever mental strength or absolution she called upon, she survived allowing him to wash her hair. And then he excused himself and let her do the rest, returning to his laptop and his staring contest with the screen saver.

When he heard the water cut off, he tapped on the door, held her fluffy terry cloth robe open for her, scrubbed a towel through her hair.

Looking over her shoulder at her reflection in the vanity mirror, he squeezed the ends tight in the towel, as he had seen her do so often.

"You want me to help you dry it?"

"No, it can air dry. It'll be fine."

"How about a braid?"

Her smile reflected back at him through the silver-backed glass. The way she was assessing him, eyes searching his face, it was as though she was seeing layers deep, finding parts of him she already knew, but couldn't remember.

"Sure, Castle."

Running the wide, square brush through her hair, he watched her eyes close in a moment of unguarded enjoyment. She loved it when he did this, said it was something no one else had done, except for her mother.

Working his fingers through the thick, chestnut locks, he divided them into three parts. Though he could French braid easily enough, he didn't think either of them had the patience at this moment.

As he was nearing the end, about to pull the elastic from his wrist to twist and hold the plait, she found his eyes again, lifting her now-uncovered cast just off the counter.

"How do you know so much about this anyway?"

"Alexis broke her arm when she was eleven. Had the cast for six weeks, but she could do most everything herself by the end of the first one. Couldn't do her hair, though. It had been a couple of years since she'd needed me for anything like that. I'll admit, it made me feel good to be useful again."

Finishing her hair, he tugged on the end of the tail lightly, smiled over her shoulder.

"Somehow I think Alexis has always considered you useful."

"Fun to be around, snuggly, a worthy laser-tag adversary-yes. Useful? Probably not so much lately. She's in college. She doesn't need dear old dad for much these days."

"I'll bet you're wrong. You're a useful guy, when you behave yourself."

That smug little half-grin and quirked eyebrow made him long for... two days ago.

"You've always been a good dad. It was one of the first things I really respected about you."

This was a conversation they'd had before, but now, well, now it had a deeper layer of meaning. They were going to be parents together, and he needed to tell her. He needed to tell her soon.

But not right now.

"How about some lunch?" He gestured toward the pile of clean yoga pants, the button-down, the hooded sweatshirt neatly folded and stacked on the counter. There had been a silent agreement that they would tackle a bra some other day, but he had put fresh underwear and socks in the pile. "You want some help getting those on?"

"Nope. I'm good."

Dropping the end of the braid over one shoulder, he stepped out from behind her, headed for the bathroom door.

"Grilled cheese and tomato soup?"

"I think I could handle that."

It was her favorite stay-home-sick food, not that that really happened so often. In fact, lately it tended to happene when she was feeling quite well, but today it would be comfort food.

His heart was lighter as he sat to eat with her, settled her in on the couch with a stack of books and her iPhone, sat across the room, typing at his desk. The words were flowing this afternoon, and he knew it was because, for just a few hours, this felt almost normal. Not normal for a Thursday, but maybe for a day off on the weekend.

Lanie called to check in, asked if they needed anything. So did Jim. There was no new word from the boys, but he knew they were investigating this on top of their regular workload, and they were down a detective, so he tried not to be impatient. Martha and Alexis had both been in touch with him, making sure he didn't need help or more supplies. His only request was to let them have a few days to lay low, see how things settled out. _See if she remembered._ That was the question none of them had asked. But then, neither had he. Kate would tell him.

But as he added a page break, moving to the next chapter of Nikki and Rook's case, his eyes focused briefly on the photo frame on the right corner of his desk. The shot was his very favorite of Alexis as a baby, smiling up at the camera from her high chair, covered in something about the same color as her hair. His daughter had not appreciated his attempt to introduce squash into her diet, and she had expressed her food preference by covering him and half the kitchen in the pureed orange vegetable. The stuff totally stained, and they both had looked a little orange-tinted for the next couple of days. It had been the seed of her nickname: Pumpkin.

It was time to tell Kate.

There was no more putting it off.

Two days. Her headache had nearly disappeared, and her memory wasn't back.

No more excuses.

Closing the laptop and standing, he stretched his back and paced over to sit on the opposite end of the couch. Buried deep in her novel, she was oblivious to his presence until he laid a hand on her blanketed foot, squeezing gently.

"Good story?"

"It is. I must have already read this, right?"

"_The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_? Yeah, I think you read all three when they came out."

Something in his tone, his expression, must have alerted her, because she marked her page, shut the book, and shifted to face him more fully.

"Kate, there is something I need to tell you. Something that I found out when I got to the hospital right after your accident."

Her brow furrowed.

"Okay."

"I'm not even sure if this was something you already knew about, or not. The doctors thought you might not have, because it's so early."

Setting the book down entirely, she pulled her legs under her and sat up straighter, her eyes getting more narrow by the moment.

"You're scaring me, Castle. Is there something else wrong with me?"

That had been his own assumption before Dr. Wells had quit hemming and hawing and finally spit out the answer.

"No. Absolutely not. There's nothing else wrong. This is something really wonderful, really right, actually. It's something you and I had talked a lot about-maybe not for right this moment, but for someday. And we both-this is a good thing, you have to trust me about that, because I know you don't remember..."

Oh, he wasn't doing this well. Damn it. Her eyes had gone wide, face pale, shoulders stiffening.

Out with it.

"Kate, you're pregnant. _We're pregnant_."

At first, her only response was a vacant blink, but then her head gave a slow shake.

"I'm... no. How could I be... and not even..."

The shift in her body was subtle, but she leaned back, put space between them, lost eye contact scanning the walls. After a moment, she started again, this time with icy venom, tickling his memory with a vague likeness of the past.

"Castle, you mean to tell me that you found out about this two days ago and _chose_ not to tell me?"

Mad. He could handle mad. Mad wasn't falling apart and bursting into tears. He didn't know if he could take more tears today.

"Your doctors all agreed it was probably better to wait and let me tell you once you were home."

"So my doctors knew this too? You all conspired in some paternalistic, condescending mob and decided it was okay _not_ to tell me something so incredibly personal-"

Unfolding her legs and throwing off the blanket, she stood up and paced to his desk.

Everything she had said was right. He had kept this from her. If it had been him, he knew he would have been furious, even if it was only 48 hours of being in the dark.

Wheeling around, she fisted her good hand on her hip, stalked halfway back to him.

"It's _my body_, Castle. _Mine_. And you can say all you want about doctor's opinions and good intentions, but at the end of the day, you kept information from me that I needed to know."

The memory sparked to life in his mind's eye, another day, another secret.

"How dare you treat me like some sort of child who can't handle her own life?"

Giving into the urge to defend himself, he pushed off the couch and straightened up to his full height.

"Kate, I was just trying to do the right thing. Did you want me to sit there after your panic attack in the MRI scanner and tell you that in addition to losing three years of your life, oh, by the way, we're living together, and we're getting married this summer, and, apparently you're going to have my baby in about eight months?"

Her arms dropped limp at her sides, and she took two steps backward toward the bedroom.

"If you knew, I should have known. Nothing you can say is going to change that."

And with that she turned, stormed into the closet, came out wearing shoes.

Shoes. No. She wasn't leaving. She couldn't leave. Not now.

"Kate, don't-"

Catching up to her just as she grabbed her purse from the bureau near the front door, he tried to come up with something, some words to make her stay, but she had already made her position clear-no apology, no justification, no amount of pleading on his part would change this. So he stood in his hall, feet frozen to the floor, watching as she unlocked the door and viciously twisted the knob.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low, daggers hurled directly at his heart, and she wouldn't even face him.

"Don't follow me."

And then she was gone, door shutting behind her with a cold, metallic click. The sound echoed in his ears, reverberated in his chest, until it was no longer the snick of a door pulling shut, but rather the irrevocable crack of his heart shattering open.

**# * # * # * # **

**Author's note: I hope I haven't lost you all with this long gap between updates. Before you yell at me, go listen to Jason Mraz, "I won't give up." That was the only thing that got me through writing this chapter. Now feel free to yell.**

**Alex, you and your pom poms could seriously motivate glaciers to invade Florida. I am grateful for the constant stream of supportive cheers, and occasional appropriate strongly-worded scolding. You love me even when I make my characters cry. In fact, I think you love me **_**more**_** when I make them cry. :) Thank you.**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	7. Chapter 7

**Rewound Chapter Seven**

Her stomach clenched as she stood waiting for the elevator, phone clutched tightly in her hand and pressed a little too hard against her ear. Why was Lanie not answering?

Oh, well, maybe because it was _Thursday_, not yet five in the evening, and normal people-those who hadn't been in car accidents and broken their wrists and lost three years of their lives, they were working on a weekday afternoon.

When it finally went to voicemail, Kate touched "End," and pocketed the iPhone she didn't remember owning, then stepped onto the waiting elevator.

As the numbers ticked down, she thought about her options. Her dad would also still be working, but he would drop a case or a client or whatever million dollar business proposition he might have before him to meet her. Not what she wanted. There was always his cabin upstate; he wouldn't mind if she just caught a cab up there alone. Maybe he still had that key hidden in the potted plant on the back porch, despite her constant nagging to remove it. If not, well, it was a long drive up and back in one night.

There was always Maddie, who had called to check on her the night before, had even said "any time you need to talk." But both her father and her friend would have questions. Why had she left Castle? What could they do to help? Kate had no way of knowing if either knew about the pregnancy. Hell, she didn't even know if _she_ had known about being pregnant before the accident.

The last thing Kate could handle at that moment was a well-meaning face, lips that smiled and then asked things she wasn't ready to answer.

No, her best bet was to take a walk, clear her head, and wait for Lanie to finish her shift. This was a best friend situation.

Her subconscious reminded her that she had just yelled at and stormed out on her best friend. The irony of it sank in her gut like a stone.

Stepping off the elevator, that same doorman from the night before was sitting at the desk. For the life of her, she couldn't remember his name. Curtis? Terrence? Damn her memory, suddenly a liability when it had always been a strength.

"Ms. Beckett, how are you this evening? Can I get you a cab? Call the car service?"

Those discerning, concerned eyes scrutinized her appearance, took in the sweatshirt, the cotton pants, the slip-on clogs, all too light for the chill in the early spring air, recognized that this was not her norm. Questions. Everywhere, questions.

"No..." the pause as she begged her brain to remember his name was too long. "Thank you. I'm just going for a walk."

The long, strong arm held open the door for her as she rushed past.

Everything was too close in that building. Everything and everyone.

Turning left and crossing the street, she made for the open, no destination in mind other than "elsewhere."

Her feet made quick work of one block, and then two, as her mind tried to wrap itself around what Castle had said. Pregnant. But how could she be pregnant? Naïvely, she had always assumed if she ever were actually pregnant, her body would tell her, she would have some sixth sense, some sort of recognition. But now? Now she felt nothing. Nothing except a debilitating sense of helplessness, of drowning in unexpected responsibility, of being completely unprepared.

Oh, God, wasn't she supposed to be doing things by now? Wracking her brain, she dug back to her high school health class. Avoiding caffeine? Sushi? Alcohol? Some kinds of cheese? Why had none of her close friends had babies? Then she would have someone to ask. At least Lanie would know the medical side. Maybe she should try her again.

Though she was covering ground, she hadn't realized where exactly she was until she glanced up and saw the Chakra poster in the window of the Hippie vitamin store.

Vitamins.

Damn it.

She should have been taking those even before she was pregnant. Some preventable birth defect that she couldn't put her finger on.

How could she even think about bringing a life into the world when she was already such an abject failure as a mother?

Feeling at that moment as if she had been presented with one concrete thing that she could take charge of, she yanked open the door.

# * # * # * #

Castle stood staring at that closed door, guts twisting in knots.

Kate was gone.

But then it hit him. This was not just _Kate_ who had walked out on him, left their home, their life. This was Kate and their _child_. And damn her warning not to follow, because there was no way he was letting her get away this time.

Pants. He should probably find actual pants, rather than gym shorts. And f-ine, he needed shoes.

Racing to find the necessary items-yesterday's jeans would more than suffice, and he didn't really need socks after all-he was clothed and back at his door in minutes. His resolve slipped briefly as he relived the anger in her eyes, her icy tone as she dismissed him.

But then he remembered the woman he had made love to only a few nights before; this Kate had become that warm, loving, caring woman after just a few short months of hard work on her part, and a few more of patience and kindness on his. Even if she never got those three years back, he _would_ get his Kate back. All he needed was persistence, a little bit of luck, and time.

Time. Shit. She was minutes ahead of him by now.

Racing out the door, he took the stairs, flew down to the lobby and nearly toppled out of the stairwell in his hurry.

"Clarence, did you see Kate?"

"I sure did. Didn't seem quite right to me, either, Mr. Castle, to be honest."

"Well, she hasn't quite been herself since the accident. Did you call her a cab?"

"No, she said she wanted to walk."

Oh good, so there was still a chance he could catch her.

"Did you happen to see which way she went?"

"To the left and across the street, I believe. Good luck, Mr. Castle."

"Thanks. That's just what I'll need."

Shoving out the lobby door, he nearly flattened the tall, lanky man coming in.

"Chris?"

Kate's nurse from the recovery room? He could never forget the man's kind face, his way of explaining things-he had kept Castle calm when he needed it most. But what the hell was he doing coming into his building?

"Mr. Castle?"

The man looked just as surprised to find him here.

Both spoke at once.

"What are you doing here?"

Castle answered first.

"I live here."

The man gestured vaguely upward.

"So does my girlfriend. I'm picking her up."

That was... quite a coincidence, Kate's nurse dating a woman in their building.

"I've never seen you around before."

His writer's imagination began to kick into overdrive. It was very convenient, really, if someone were trying to keep an eye on them.

"We, ah, just started seeing each other, actually. But wow, what a coincidence. How's your fiancé?"

"I'm just on my way to meet her, actually. She's doing well. Got out of the hospital last night."

"Good! I'm glad. I heard about her... memory. Dr. Wells told me. Anything coming back yet?"

Now he knew about the amnesia? This whole situation was making him uncomfortable.

"No."

Chris' face fell.

"I'm sorry. It's still early, though. She'll remember."

Castle switched spots with the nurse, making his way out onto the sidewalk.

"Thanks. I'm sorry, but I've got to be going."

He wanted to stay, lay eyes on this supposed girlfriend, see what unit she lived in. The building wasn't that big, after all.

"Oh, don't let me slow you down. Tell Detective Beckett I wish her the best."

His gut clenched as he realized how much this little chance meeting had slowed him down.

"Will do."

# * # * # * #

Heading for the shelves of vitamins, it didn't take long for Kate to locate the prenatal section. When presented with the fifteen or so brands, all claiming to have different "essential" levels of folate and "DHA," she started reading labels. Some claimed to be "mercury-free, harvested from algae," while others stated they were "surpassing the strictest environmental standards" for heavy metal testing. Around the tenth cheerfully-colored bottle, all her frustrations finally burst through the dam, and tears began to blur her vision.

What business did she have being a mother?

Babies required love, and time, and patience. She couldn't even remember telling the father of her baby she loved him. Didn't mean she hadn't felt it-but God, how could she love a baby, _his_ baby, with all her heart when she couldn't even admit to loving him? And she was a cop who barely had time for herself, much less enough to take care of another person. Damn it, she didn't even have the patience to read the labels on the back of vitamin bottles, or hear out the father of her baby when he tried to tell her-

"Can I help you, sweetie?"

Kate startled, looked to her right, took in the silhouette of the woman occupying the end of the aisle, crouched low, restocking the shelf of calcium supplements.

Clearing her throat, she nodded, forced out a semi-coherent, "No, thanks."

Undaunted, the woman rose to a standing position. Her blonde hair was tied in two jaunty pigtails, falling in curls over each shoulder, the green "Zen Vitamin" apron covering the small but telling bump at her belly.

"Not that you asked, but if you're spending that much time debating, get the algae ones. You'll worry yourself sick about heavy metals until your due date if you don't."

Responding to the confidence of her tone, Kate set the bottle in her right hand back on the shelf and grabbed the one next to it, clutching it tightly to her chest.

"You throwing up much?"

The woman had pulled the larger sized bottle from the shelf, gently pried the smaller one from her fist, swapping them.

Kate shook her head.

"No, not yet."

Why was she talking to this perfect stranger about being pregnant?

"Oh, good for you, sweetie. You must be havin' a girl. I puked my guts out for five months straight with my boys. Don't you believe what those doctors say-morning sickness does _not_ just happen in the morning, and it does _not _end after the first trimester."

The woman pointed at her belly, then rubbed it firmly, seemed to slip into a conversation meant for that tiny, floating life alone.

"That's right, darlin,' you are mamma's good girl, aren't you? No makin' me barf for months on end..."

Kate couldn't help but smile at the obvious affection this possibly crazy woman had for the life growing in her belly. She was speaking to the little bump like it was an infant, already cooing in her arms.

A picture flashed into Kate's mind: big, blue eyes framed by chestnut curls, a pink, pouting lower lip with a cherub's round cheeks. There was the beginning of a baby inside her belly. A baby, perfect and innocent, made by her and Castle-her partner, who had tried to explain that it was a good thing, something they created through their love, their passion. Every fiber of her being believed his explanation; nothing, not one single piece of evidence from her past argued against her blind and absolute belief in his version of their life together.

Shifting the bottle of vitamins to the basket dangling from her elbow just above her cast, her right hand fell to the flat plane of her abdomen, pressed against it, circled gently.

They were going to have a _baby_.

"You want some tea, sweetie? A little chamomile and ginseng can work wonders for the hormones."

Kate pressed her lips tightly together as a different sort of tears tried to surface.

"Thank you. I'm... okay. I should get... home. But really, thank you."

This gentle, somewhat intrusive woman, who couldn't be much older than Kate, had given her what she needed-a little bit of perspective, a dose of reality. Women got pregnant all the time and had babies with less support, less going for them than she had on her worst day.

The woman held out her hand, gracing Kate with the most genuine smile she had seen in a long while.

"I'm Hannah. I'm here most days for the afternoon shift, if you wanna take a rain check on that tea. Helps to talk sometimes, 'specially when the idea of bein' a mamma is a surprise, which it _definitely_ was for me the first time. Well, and if you wanna be technical about it, also the _second_ time."

Her hand was as warm as her eyes that scrunched at the admission of her unplanned motherhood, and Kate couldn't help the little burst of connection she felt.

"I'm Kate. I... appreciate the offer."

As she turned to the cash register, Kate's hand returned to her belly.

A mother.

She was going to be a mother. And Castle would be a father, again, with her.

They would do this together.

Remembering his eyes, glowing and joyous underneath all the fear when he had told her about the baby, she _knew_ he would do this with her. Knew he wanted this child, wanted _her_ most of all.

Even if she wasn't ready, if she was wounded, and couldn't see the way forward, he wanted to lead her, to catch her when she fell, to follow her lead when she was ready.

No matter what she believed, what she felt, a sense of certainty settled over her. This baby, _their baby_, was real, and she was a survivor, just like her mother.

# * # * # * #

Off like a shot, Castle jogged through the first block, dismissing the stationery story, the corner pub, the nail salon right off the bat. At the next intersection he contemplated changing direction, heading toward the little place she liked to get frozen yogurt after her yoga class, but he scratched that idea when he remembered it had only opened a year before.

_Think, Rick._

Where would Beckett go, furious and confused? The morgue, to find Lanie? No, she'd have caught a cab. To her dad's? Still at work, all the way down in the financial district. Too far. Knowing Kate, if she was walking off her mad, she would just keep walking.

When the light changed and the traffic finally broke, he sped across the street, kept going another block, scanning the shop windows. Bakery. No. Shoe store-oh, maybe? No, just a bored-looking clerk and an empty showroom. That was when he saw a flash of hoodie, one storefront over. Thank God-there she was. The sense of relief flooded through his veins, the drop in adrenaline making him dizzy. But why the hell was she in the checkout line at Zen Vitamin?

Quickly ducking his head and turning away, he made for the door, took position against the brick pillar on one side. It wouldn't do any good for him to barge in right now. Her eyes were puffy, lids rimmed in red. But rather than fury, she had a sort of... glow... about her. Maybe he had imagined the way her palm pressed low against the pocket of her sweatshirt, the hint of a smile that had crossed her lips, the light in her eyes.

Even if she was still furious, she'd had a little time. Maybe she would... listen. Give him a chance.

Castle didn't have long to wait. Just a few moments later he heard the telltale ring of the bell on the door, and the glass swung outward, her shoulder pressed against it. Pushing off the wall, he cleared his throat, caught her attention.

"How did you find me?"

Not exactly warm and friendly, but no venom this time. He would take what he could get.

"You're not the only one with detecting skills."

Her eyes narrowed at his attempt at levity.

"Clarence pointed me in the right direction."

That won him a tight nod.

Not wanting to take any liberties, or make any undue assumptions, he kept his distance.

Kate was the one to step in, good hand buried in the pocket of her hoodie, paper bag slung over the top of her cast.

"I needed vitamins."

Oh, wow. For all the thought he'd put into making her eat, avoiding all the bad things, hydrating, and getting her to rest as much as possible, somehow he hadn't thought about this. She took a regular vitamin every day, but there were special things in the prenatal ones. This was something he ought to have _remembered_. What an idiot.

"Sure. You found the right ones?"

Keeping her eyes decidedly down, she took a deep breath, let it out, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then spoke quietly.

"Yeah, I think so."

The urge to dig into that pocket, find her hand and hold it so tight that she couldn't let go, rooted deep in his heart, made him reckless, made him want things he had no right to want with this version of Kate. So he settled for offering whatever she might...

"Is there... anything else you need?"

For one split second, her eyes met his, soft and seeking and shy.

"There is... one thing... I need."

Her shoulders were still hunched, keeping out the wind and the cold and the... world.

Anything. He would do _anything_ at that moment.

Then that hand snuck out of its warm spot, reached for his, intertwining their fingers, so firm, so sure, like she had done hundreds of times before but couldn't possibly remember now. It made his heart leap, start beating, whole and warm, for the first time since he'd watched her leave.

"Take me home, Castle."

Oh... that he could definitely do.

# * # * # * #

**Author's Note: I continue to be astounded by your reviews, follows, and favorites. Every single reader deserves my thanks for finding and staying with this story. Alex, thank you for coaxing me through the Dr. Quinn marathon to get here. There will be more Patron whence we meet.**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	8. Chapter 8

**Rewound Chapter Eight**

Warm. Everything felt soft and comfortable and... warm. Her lids hid her consciousness, kept the orange light of morning from seeping further in, but that light persisted. Even if she refused to see it, then she would feel it, reflecting off her skin. Her dream had been warm, too: a beach she didn't remember, blue sky.

"Kate?"

That voice, so low and smooth and _near_. Calling her to the light, to the day, to the warmth.

Her subconscious still unwilling to part completely with her perfect, blissful cocoon, Kate's eyes remained closed. If she didn't open them, maybe she could convince herself that the mess that her life had become was really the dream.

And then she felt it. A touch so tender, so sweet, so familiar, that it made her heart leap in her chest. The broad, steady palm stroked over the peak of her shoulder, circled there, gently invoking wakefulness. That touch would not have existed in the world she remembered, though she might have welcomed it.

Perhaps some aspects of this reality were worth the trade.

Blinking sluggishly, the first thing she saw was Castle's smiling face, rough with stubble and still creased from his pillow. And some deep, intuitive part of her knew that this was how it should be, how it must have been.

"Morning."

"Hey. I'm sorry to wake you, but we've got places to be."

Of course-she had appointments today. Burke and one of the surgeons both had her scheduled to follow up.

He was still smiling when he spoke again, but with a hint of worry behind the blue of his eyes.

"You didn't even budge when my alarm went off a minute ago."

Never one to sleep long past dawn, Kate had assumed her schedule was off thanks to the sleepless night in the hospital, the injuries, but after yesterday's revelation, she recognized that her body had a whole different reason. Panic flickered but didn't surface.

So much would be different now.

Still hovering over her, one hand now stroking along her upper arm, Castle was letting everything show. That shine in his eyes, the ever-present curve at one corner of his lips; he wanted to kiss her good morning. Then there was a subtle shift in his smile, and she saw him make the decision.

Taking a deep breath, he gave her arm a little squeeze, and climbed back off the bed.

"Want some coffee? Decaf, sorry. I know you hate it. Or I can make you half a cup of the real stuff, right? Isn't that what the site said?"

Even the thought of decaf made her feel dirty. But he was right; they had studied up.

"Give me the decaf. If I'm quitting, I should just go cold turkey."

When they had come home the night before, he had made her dinner, poured them each a massive glass of milk, and pulled out all the materials from the hospital about her pregnancy.

Though he had obviously already read every word of the brochures, he sat with her on the couch and read them again, making sure to give her space, keep a wide berth. When they reached the bottom of the stack, he had dug into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, hesitantly unfolded a slick paper square-a print out.

The gray, staticky photo didn't look like anything more than a black blob with a tiny light speck off to one side, but he showed her just where the doctor had pointed, said everything was perfect. It was really early, between 4 and 5 weeks, well before they could even see the baby itself. Even so, he had kept the picture in his wallet. Her heart clenched; he was already head over heels for this tiny life growing inside her. Why couldn't she feel that sense of wonder, let it overcome some of the fear?

The laptop appeared next, and with it, a search of pregnancy tracking websites. Finally choosing one to subscribe to, she dove into the world of gestational age, trimesters, and pregnancy symptoms. Never one to be left out, he had read over her shoulder, his excitement pouring out over all the information they found, nudging them closer together until he was pressed tight to her side, pointing at the image of a tiny, six-week fetus, which was about how far along she would be when she went for her first prenatal visit with her own OB/GYN.

They'd researched for hours, and she had fallen asleep there, head lolled against his chest, laptop still warming her thighs, his arm snug around her shoulders, dozing until he had woken her to get ready for bed. It appeared her need for sleep was determined to encourage intimacy between them. But he certainly hadn't seemed to mind.

Now, with the sun flooding the loft, she was amazed to see it was after nine. That made at least ten hours, not even counting her hour nap on the couch. Half her day was already gone.

When she entered the living room, teeth brushed and slippers on, he had her fake coffee waiting with whole grain toast and... Damson plum preserves? How did he know...? She shook her head. It was time to come to terms with her complete inability to keep secrets from this man. Castle had obviously had time to ferret out every blessed detail of her psyche over the past three years. It put her at quite the disadvantage.

Sitting at the counter, she sipped the "coffee" with a preconceived notion of distaste, but was actually pleasantly surprised.

"This isn't bad."

Castle stopped mid-pour, let the orange juice bottle hit the counter with a solid "thunk," probably overdoing the exaggerated look of shock and horror a tad.

"Someone alert the media, Kate Beckett has been replaced by an alien impersonator."

It won him an eye roll. And that, apparently, was the best present she could have given him.

His face lit up, all boyish grin and rakish glint in his eyes.

"Hey, I'm just trying to keep an open mind, do my motherly duty for _your_ kid."

That warmth she'd seen when he woke her reappeared for a split second before he got it reined in, resumed his juice pouring. To his credit, he covered it well, but she had seen it.

When he answered, it was with just enough snark to disarm.

"I get it, every time pregnancy pisses you off for the next eight months, the baby is _my_ kid."

Slipping right into their old rhythm, she bantered back, quirked an eyebrow.

"You catch on quick, for a writer."

# * # * # * #

The second attempt at showering went much more smoothly, and she managed getting dressed on her own except for the bra and the button on her jeans. Even those hadn't been nearly as humiliating as she had feared. While he slipped back into the bathroom to get himself ready, she explored her bureau, poked around a bit in her closet, and she was still searching drawers, head bent, when he came out of the bathroom.

"Castle, I'm almost afraid to ask, because I have a feeling it got lost in the accident, but where is my..."

When she finally looked up at him, the words died on her lips. He was standing in the doorway of the closet, hair and skin still damp from his shower, wearing nothing but a towel tucked snugly around his hips. Her heart rate kicked up, and she had to remember to draw in a breath, because oh my goodness, the man was _hot_. All bulging biceps and broad shoulders and really excellent chest, and if he had always been hiding all of this under his dress shirts, what the hell kind of a detective was she? Guh. The flush crept up her neck, heat blooming over her face and ears.

"Your...?"

Her eyes snapped back up to his face from where they had been trailing down... lower... and she was fairly sure she failed miserably at hiding her reaction. Oh yeah, she had. The smug bastard was grinning at her. He was enjoying this. It occurred to her that he might have even done it on purpose. Fine. A nearly naked, dewy, surreptitiously-flexing partner was not enough to throw her off her game. She had a serious question to ask. What was her question again? Oh, right.

"My mom's ring."

The grin melted from his face, all mirth disappearing, his whole demeanor deflating.

"Oh. No, it didn't get lost." Slipping the robe off the back of the door and over his shoulders, he turned and exited toward the office. "You, uh, haven't been wearing it lately. It's in the safe."

Following him out, she caught up to him just as the small door swung open. Why would she have stopped wearing it? Maybe it had something to do with her mother's case. Had they solved it? She studied the stiffness in his back. Maybe right now was not the time to ask for those kinds of answers; they were in a hurry, and she had a feeling the discussion might not be simple, or particularly pleasant.

His hands shuffled through a few pouches until he pulled one out, handed it to her.

"Here you go."

Was that defeat that slumped his shoulders, lowered his brow?

"I, um-"

One hand wasn't enough to get the small fabric bag untied.

"Sorry, here."

Slipping the knot, he poured the chain out into his palm, carefully took it between his fingers, and slid it over her head. The ring's familiar weight landed between her breasts, and she reverently tucked it under her shirt, let the metal warm against her skin. It eased something inside of her.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

But she saw it was a problem, that the act of putting it back around her neck had affected him, hurt him somehow.

"Did I-"

"You said you didn't need it anymore."

The blue of his eyes sharpened, and the muscles of his jaw flexed, then relaxed on a measured breath.

"Oh."

Yet another way she couldn't measure up to his memory.

"It's okay, Kate, you should wear it. I should have thought of it myself."

Somewhere inside him, he found a smile for her. And yet, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had just taken a giant step backward.

# * # * # * #

All doctors' offices looked alike. Not that she'd had occasion to go to many in her life, at least not that she could remember, but the surgeon's exam room, with its padded bench, rolling stool, and uncomfortable-looking side chair was entirely uninspiring.

At least Castle was enjoying himself. Immediately commandeering the stool, he proceeded to roll around the perimeter of the small room, opening drawers and leafing through patient booklets.

"Oh, this is so cool."

A plastic model of a heart appeared from one of the drawers, blood vessels colored blue and red. Just as there was a knock on the door, the cut-away piece from the front of the model clattered to the counter.

"Castle!" she hissed.

"Good morning, Ms. Beckett, oh and Mr. Castle. So nice to see you again."

The diminutive blonde reminded her of a pixie, a pixie drill sergeant. This was the physician's assistant who had come in at 5 A. M. after her surgery, beginning the never-ending parade of specialists. On that morning, she had wasted no time with pleasantries, just went about checking her hand and cast and then gave them instructions about keeping it dry and holding nothing heavier than a pencil. This morning, however, she seemed to have time for a bit of conversation.

"It was a pretty hectic day in the hospital when we first met, so let me reintroduce myself. I'm Juliette Bowen, and I'll be seeing you with Dr. Wells to keep an eye on that artery of yours."

Kate shook the woman's hand, attempting to ignore Castle's continued fumbling with the now-disassembled jumble of plastic pieces, but another clatter drew their attention to him again.

"Mr. Castle, I always read you were a real heartbreaker, but I had no idea you worked so fast. Any chance I could have my stool?"

Kate bit down hard on her lower lip, but still couldn't quite contain her amusement. Meanwhile, in a rare role-reversal, the goofball in question rolled his eyes. Jumping up from his seat to pass it to Juliette, he handed over the various parts and switched to the nearby side chair, all the while doing his best impersonation of chagrin.

"Sorry about that. He touches things."

"Oh, no problem. Every kid who comes in here manages to take it apart."

Without even looking down, the woman had it back in one piece before the end of her sentence.

Castle pointed lamely at the heart as she set it down on the counter, looking back at Beckett.

"How did she-?"

"Moving on, Castle."

"Did you make an appointment with your orthopedist yet?"

Oh, she wasn't actually sure-

Castle chimed in before Kate could answer.

"We have one Monday after next, actually. Said they would take this first cast off and switch to a smaller one, I think."

"The ortho's office is right down the hall, so I'll come take a look at the incision that day, too."

Juliette began her inspection of Kate's hand and the cast, feeling the temperature of her skin, and then lightly pinching each fingertip one at a time to watch them as they turned pink again.

It was almost unsettling how Castle had slipped into this role of protector, organizer, maker-of-appointments. Seeing him behave so responsibly was nothing new when it came to his family-Alexis, or even his mother, but Kate had never considered herself someone who needed to be taken care of. Her own father had reversed their caregiving roles while she was still in her teens, credited her with saving his life when he couldn't save himself.

But it hit her as she processed Castle's mercurial shift in tone, from naughty little boy, breaking his toys, to competent adult, responsible for not only himself, but also for her. In this unfamiliar reality, she _was_ his family, and so was the baby she carried, regardless of whether she remembered how she had arrived at that title.

"How's your memory, Ms. Beckett? Any progress since I saw you last?"

It was a timely reminder of exactly why she needed every bit of help he was offering. The feeling of dependence rankled.

"Unfortunately, no."

It was bad enough that she was physically handicapped, one whole arm practically useless, but not trusting her brain? It made her feel weak, helpless. She needed those three years back, and she needed them now.

"Don't be discouraged. It's only been a couple of days. How does your wrist feel?"

"Much better."

At least that was true. Though it was very sore, and she could time her meds by the return of the throbbing, it didn't hurt to sit still, or even to be up and around as it had on the first day.

"Have you been keeping your fingers moving? Working your shoulder so it doesn't stiffen up?"

Kate wiggled her fingers, flexed and extended them just as the woman had shown her in the hospital.

"All the time."

"Your orthopedist will get you into physical therapy as soon as they change the cast, but as long as you don't put any weight on that arm, it's fine to type, and to resume normal activities. I wouldn't do anything high-impact like jogging though, at least not quite yet. Everything still needs time to settle."

Nodding, Kate mentally groaned. After only a few days, she was already antsy from the lack of physical activity.

"You can walk on a treadmill, or ride a stationary bike, or even do some light yoga, though."

Well, at least that was something.

"So when can I go back to work?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Castle's back straighten, his head jerk in her direction.

"If you'll be at a desk, you can go back as soon as you feel up to it. But no chasing suspects, no shooting guns. Not if you want to have a working wrist when this cast comes off."

Well, a desk-job was better than sitting on the couch all day. She could deal with paperwork.

"Do you need a new prescription for pain medication?"

"No, I've been fine with Tylenol the past two days."

The woman's eyebrows rose as she noted something on the computer terminal, then glanced at Castle.

"She's pretty tough, huh?"

Answering without hesitation, he found Kate's eyes over Juliette's shoulder.

"Toughest there is."

Nothing Kate had said or done in the past few days warranted the fierce pride in his look, the admiration in his voice. Heat rose in her face, started a tingle trickling down her spine. How could just a look, a phrase, make her body react this way? The force of her reaction made her wish yet again that she remembered what she had done to deserve all that... affection.

No, she ought to be honest with herself, stop belittling what she could see so clearly on his face, in his actions. Castle loved her, and he deserved to have that feeling acknowledged, if not actually returned. Another version of herself had done both.

Searching her memory, her heart yet again, she swallowed hard against the disappointment. That version was still nowhere to be found.

# * # * # * #

"What else is on your mind today?"

Kate had spent more than half of her time with Dr. Burke talking about her PTSD, learning techniques to help control the panic attacks once one had started.

The man seemed to know her, to read her well. And nothing about their discussion so far had made her feel like a research specimen or a crazy person whose neuroses were being catalogued. Though he clearly had ideas about what they should cover, he let her lead, but called her out every time she tried to dodge the tough issues.

Her pregnancy had come up in the context of whether it might make her more likely to react badly to her triggers, but otherwise, she had stayed away from her reaction to the news. There was something that had been eating at her ever since she found out about the baby the day before-something Burke's seemingly intimate knowledge of her state of mind put him in a position to know.

"Would I… Would I have been happy about this?"

Her eyes scanned the spines of the hardbacks on the shelf behind his head.

"I'm not sure I get your meaning."

Tucking one leg underneath her in the smooth leather chair, she laid a palm against her stomach, met his eyes.

"I mean, would I have been happy about this pregnancy? I... believe Castle. He says we talked about having kids, and that I told him I wanted to start trying... and I believe that's what I told him."

Her eyes slanted to the window.

"But you can't be sure you were telling him the truth."

Thank God he had caught her meaning. So he really _did_ know her well. Feeling suddenly too still, she stood to pace.

"I just can't imagine feeling ready to bring a baby into this world, with the kind of work I do, my lifestyle," she mentally added 'my complete lack of maternal instincts.' "And now with the PTSD…."

Her life was more of a mess than it had ever been. It took time, and commitment, and patience to be a mother. It took selflessness. She wasn't ready. For the majority of her adult life, she had thought she never would be.

Rounding on her silent psychiatrist, she met him head on with the admission.

"I'm not qualified to be a parent."

The cool, calm demeanor never wavered, but a small smile softened his look.

"There's no license, you know. None of us really feels qualified. I think most people just have to wing it, do the best they can, fill in the gaps with love."

Perching on the arm of the chair, Kate focused on her knees. This wasn't what she wanted to talk about. She wanted to know if she had really changed so much in three years, changed enough to feel like a baby with Castle was the stuff of glowing, happy dreams rather than panicked, terrifying nightmares.

Reaching for the slim chain around her neck, she slipped the ring out, spun the delicate band, now warm from her skin, traced the outline of the setting and the stone.

"Kate, tell me what you think makes a good marriage."

Where the hell was he going now? Frustration bubbled up; this was not why she was here.

"Humor me."

That he had picked up on her reaction caught her attention, garnered a modicum of respect. Calling on the ring between her fingers, what it had represented, she gave an honest answer.

"Trust, honesty, love." The easy parts. "Forgiveness, hard work."

Her parents' marriage had all of those, especially the final two, in spades. And they had always put in the time, the effort to keep building on what they had. Nothing would ever dim the memory of the two of them dancing in the living room on their anniversary, lost in each other's eyes, oblivious to the fact that their teenage daughter was peeking in from the hall, completely enchanted.

That was what she wanted, and she wasn't naïve, she knew it was rare, probably impossible for her to find.

"Do you take the idea of marriage seriously? Do you think you would marry someone if you didn't have all those things you just mentioned with that person?"

Her answer came straight out of that wistful, misty-eyed teenage girl's memory.

"No."

And it was the truth. Kate had no desire for a shadow of what she knew was possible. It would be all or nothing for her.

"I know you don't remember doing it, but you said 'yes' when Castle asked you to marry him."

Her eyes shot up to meet his as he continued. Something fluttered, uneasy in her chest.

"Do you think you would have agreed to marry Castle if you still felt the need to keep secrets from him? To lie to him about your feelings?"

Goose bumps prickled across her shoulders, down her spine, as a warm wave of raw realization washed over her whole body. Could she really have-in just three years? It was so much. Too much.

Damn Burke for using her own logic, her own feelings against her. But there was no other conclusion; no other answer made sense.

_Castle was the one._

Emotions welled up in a swirling cloud, warred, threatened to swamp her. Fear surfaced first, followed in rapid succession by elation, unruly confidence, debilitating doubt, but through the maelstrom, all of them were flooded out by an overwhelming surge of sorrow.

Loss, both jagged and stunning.

The gaping hole in her life pulled her down, took her under. Every event, every individual, inconsequential moment of love, of tenderness, of care that had made her believe in them, in their future, in their life together: gone.

In that moment, a deep current of want usurped every other thought; nothing seemed more important than having him with her, holding on to him, and telling him how sorry she was for losing _everything_, for forgetting _them_. But through the sudden blur of tears, she saw Burke was still waiting for an answer.

"No." Shaking her head once, a fresh pair of tears overflowed. "I wouldn't have said 'yes,' and then lied to him."

Silently, he reached out toward her with a box of tissues, didn't comment on her crying, just kept going, steadily, persistently forward.

"Well, then I think you've answered your own question. You've made a lot of progress in the past three years, progress that you once told me you thought was impossible. I was… surprised, frankly, at the amount of work you put in, the time you logged here in that very chair to get yourself to a place where you could love him. Your words, not mine."

So that was why she had continued to see Burke-for Castle, so she could heal herself for them. And Burke must have witnessed it-the change that the years had wrought in her. He'd known what her answer would be all along.

Pressing a tissue tight against the corners of her eyes, she sniffed once, took a breath, tried to get back to her original point. Clearing her throat, she looked up at him through her lashes, letting them provide some semblance of a veil.

"So you _do_ think I would have been happy-about this baby?"

Settling himself back in his chair, steepling his fingers over his stomach, Burke took his time, gave away nothing.

"I can't answer that for you. Only you can decide how you feel about becoming a mother."

Fury poured in on top of everything else; he was just baiting her-taking advantage of the fact that her walls were down. But with so much of herself in flux, she reacted from her gut, let out more than she might have otherwise.

"I know how I feel about it now. I'm terrified. Completely overwhelmed. I have no clue what I'm doing, and I don't see that changing anytime soon."

Her hand wrapped tight around her mother's ring, and she shut her eyes against the fresh stab of pain at her memory.

"Are you missing your mother?"

Burke obviously knew the meaning behind the piece of jewelry. And what kind of idiotic question was that, anyway? Making no effort to hide her disdain, she spat out her answer.

"Of course I'm missing her."

The ring fell from her fist, as she abandoned its hard metal in favor of the warmth of her mother's image behind her eyelids. Her forehead pressed down hard into the heel of her hand; her headache had picked up for the first time all day, and the constant pressure was almost comforting, reminding her she was alive, even if her mother was not.

Oh, to hell with it. To hell with all of it.

If the universe had chosen today to be the day for the deluge to fall on her shoulders, then bring on the rain.

Her voice was a clipped, quiet rasp when she opened her mouth again, speaking more to the universe than to Burke. The words were the same ones she had spoken to herself thousands of times before, always alone, the loneliness clawing out from the center of her chest.

"I'm supposed to have her here for this."

The tears were back, threatening her cheeks with their inevitable, fat slide of betrayal. Kate knew she couldn't win the battle, so she let them come, waded on, giving vicious voice to the bitterness threatening to sink her spirit.

"My mom should be the one telling me how to get through the hormones and the morning sickness and the total lack of control over my own body."

The shaking in her voice stemmed from anger as much as her tears. Pregnancy seemed an inconvenience at best, a life-threatening illness at worst. And without the knowledge of the why and the how to fall back on, or the voice of experience to reassure her, the next eight months loomed like an unjust sentence, a wrongful punishment before her. The thoughts that had been building, threatening to overflow for days finally broke through the dam of her resolve, tumbled out uncensored.

"I can't do this alone. I can't. I'm not strong enough."

She wasn't strong. This day had provided her ample proof of her shortcomings.

Burke, apparently unfazed by her fatalistic outburst, simply sat forward, rested his forearms on his knees, spoke low and even.

"You underestimate yourself."

That voice, the assurance behind it, floated across, grabbed hold, buoyed her drowning hopes.

Her mother wasn't coming back; with her luck, neither were the memories. None of this, not one single bit, was fair. It wasn't fair, and yet, there was no way out but forward. Even in her desperation, she could see it.

His next words, so sure and so true, finally plucked her from the undertow.

"And Kate, you know you're only alone if you want to be."

# * # * # * #

"It's about time."

"Good to speak with you, too, sir."

"You've kept me waiting."

"It takes time, gathering this sort of information without being... obvious."

"And what have you learned?"

"My initial information was correct."

There was a pause, silence over the line.

"Good."

"So I should continue..."

"To watch and wait. Stay close. Let me take care of the next step."

"That shouldn't be a problem."

"And let me know the instant anything changes."

"I will, Senator. I will."

**# * # * # * #**

**A/N: Thanks for sticking with me, and being patient with the sometimes-surly Dr. Worf. Every single review makes my day. More story to come. And Alex, you win all the awards. ALL THE AWARDS. Thank you.**

**-Kate**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	9. Chapter 9

**Rewound Chapter Nine**

By the time she turned the knob, nudged open the door, Kate's tears were nowhere in sight, boxed up tight with the rest of her emotions in the darkest, coldest basement of her heart. Those tears had left their mark though-a scarlet letter to show the world she had lost control. But it wasn't the world who would see her when she stepped outside Burke's office; it was the one person who would know exactly what those tracks of tears cost.

Castle.

As soon as he spotted her, his face fell, and he nearly jumped out of his seat to stand beside her. Though he scanned the damage, took in her posture, her stride, he didn't act on whatever his instincts seemed to be telling him.

There was no scene in the waiting room; there were no questions about what was wrong or what he could do in that still-public setting. His restraint surprised her, frankly; she had expected a more melodramatic reaction to her tear-stained cheeks, red-rimmed eyes, gravely voice. But instead of drama, he gave her a cryptic little smile, held out a hand, squeezed tight when she took it in hers, and led the way silently to the waiting car.

It was a quiet ride in the backseat, and he gave her space, but about halfway home, her need for contact finally won out, and she slid her hand across the seat to cover his. That small, inconsequential, completely momentous gesture drew his attention away from the scene out the window, but his gaze hesitated on their joined hands, studying their fingers clasped against the leather seat but venturing no further.

It wasn't until they were through his front door, toeing off shoes and sloughing off layers, that he turned to her, arms by his sides, and offered himself up, voice almost steady under the thin veneer of composure.

His arms opened ever so slightly, palms rotated to face her, in a gesture designed to inspire no pressure to comply, but which even she recognized as the final attempt of a desperate man.

"I don't know what happened, but I know what it takes to make you cry, so I'm here, whatever you need."

She needed three years of her life back.

She needed her mom.

But most of all, at that moment, she needed him.

And so she fell into those arms, their strength, their haven. They curved around her carefully, as though she might shatter at his touch, but she was made of stronger stuff-he ought to know that. Burying her nose against the cool skin of his neck, she caught her one useful arm around his ribcage, clutched a fist full of cotton shirt just shy of his spine, drew in a breath, slow and deep. God he smelled good. Aftershave, and body wash and just a hint of cologne all layered in with him. Her eyes squeezed tight, out of tears for the time being, seeking the respite of darkness.

As a rule, they didn't hug. Well, to be fair, she didn't hug; he probably hugged his daughter and mother all the time. But Kate could count on one hand the number of hugs she could remember sharing with him.

Despite everything she had forgotten since, she remembered how it felt to be in his arms-every second, every nuance. The spark of warmth beneath her cheek when everything else was so very cold. The dizzying rush of unexpected calm when she had been sure they would be flattened to the pavement, blown to pieces. Castle had been so very steady both times, his bulk surrounding her, protecting her, subsuming her.

And then there had been the kiss. That undercover ruse that she'd sworn had been real lodged in her memory. His hands in her hair, his lips seeking, engaging. Letting go of him that night had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. But there had been reasons: their friends, the job, her boyfriend.

But now... Now by every account, she ought to be hugging him, holding him, kissing him, and more. If only she could remember getting to this place, bridging that chasm of... what-fear? loneliness? formality-that had always existed between them.

After a moment of stiff contact, something changed in him; all his hard lines became liquid, curving, curling softness. His fingers splayed over her waist, the lowest dip of her spine, and his whole body bowed around her, taking her up, supporting her weight, physical, emotional.

His chest expanded, breath tickling warm against her neck on his exhale, and she felt the moisture wet her skin before she could tell he was crying.

For everything he had offered her since she awoke, confused and in pain, what had she offered him? Who had asked him if he was alright, if he needed anything, a touch, a kind word, some token of gratitude for his unending patience and care?

The man had been holding her up, literally and figuratively, shouldering every burden, protecting her and loving her for days, all with nothing in return. Enough. He deserved comfort; he deserved to be held just as much as she did, maybe more.

Pulling away, she felt his grip tighten, as if trying to keep her close. But she put only enough distance between them to see his face, let go of her hold on his shirt to bring her fingers to his cheek, catch the remnants of his silent tears.

At first he was horrified, face flushed in embarrassment at being caught crying. But he relaxed again when she smiled, threaded her fingers into his hair to smooth it from where it had rumpled against her neck.

Cupping the back of his head, she pulled him in close again, this time tipping her face up to keep their eyes locked.

"Hey."

He sniffed, slid his hands to wrap behind her upper arms, blinked purposefully.

"Hey."

"You want some dinner? It only takes one hand to order in."

Scrubbing that hand along his hairline, she kneaded the stiff muscles of his neck. The gesture, though completely foreign to her, seemed... right, somehow.

And it triggered something coiled tighter, deeper, to relax inside him. He let out a sigh, dropped the tension from his shoulders, leaned into her body, nudged his forehead into hers. His voice resonated at some unremembered frequency, settled into parts of her psyche she hadn't realized were dormant, woke them, soothed, comforted.

"I could eat." The words hardly mattered when he sounded like this. "What do you feel like?" His hands slid down, traced the curve of her lowest rib until his fingers met at the center of her back, interlaced, locked her to him with a perfect fit. The move was too practiced, too comfortable not to be theirs. And she finally let the last inhibition go, let herself feel the rightness of it, fill the space his strong arms defined, attempt to own it as she knew she had, and would again one day soon. "Chinese never gets old. Or there's a Thai place you like, good green curry."

"Really? I get _green_ curry?"

His face didn't fall at the reminder. Maybe they were both getting better at taking things as they came.

"Oh, I forgot. That started after the great curry battle of 2013."

Squinting incredulously up at him through her lashes, she quirked half a grin, set him on the defensive.

"What? It happened-I swear. I even have pictures."

It did sound like something that would go on in the Castle household, what with all the stories of cooking experiments with his mom and Alexis, and of course she had once witnessed the laser tag. If she had really become part of this family, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that she'd been roped into a Thai takeout competition. But Panang was always her go-to...

"Fine, Castle. I'll try it, but when I hate it, I'm just going to eat all your spicy noodles."

His lips clamped so tight their edges went white.

The mirth was practically bubbling over when she released him to go for her phone.

"Oh God, Castle, what are you, nine? Do not even say it."

Thumbing through her contacts, she marveled at how many were unfamiliar, spotted the Thai Garden easily enough under "restaurants." Peering over her shoulder, invading her personal space as always, he started in a whine, but ended in a sexy little huff near her ear.

"You set me up like that and then won't let me have my punch line? Kate Beckett, you are an incorrigible tease."

On another night, in that other life, something buried too deep for her to forget told her that he would have pulled her into bed, kissed her until all the hurt melted away, used his hands and lips and tongue to erase the memory of tears, the reasons for them. But this was not that night; this was not that life; so she clamped down on the fluttering in her chest and put the mask back on. Hoping the mirth she forced into her tone would hide the regret behind her words, she bumped back against his chest with her good shoulder and hit "call."

"Shh. I'm ordering. Go find those pictures."

# * # * # * #

She was naked beneath him. His body, a furnace enveloping her, warmed her chilled skin, his lips painted a hot, wet, path down her neck, over her collarbone, between her breasts. Light from a fire flickered, burnishing his skin, kissing the curve of his biceps as he held himself over her.

When his lips closed around her nipple, the sharp pique of pleasure radiated out in a simmering wave, overwhelmed every sense; she thought she might leave her body with the joy of just this.

He was working over her with such skill, the confidence of a lover who knew exactly how to make her sigh, how to force her breath to hitch in her lungs, her back to arch, her hips to rock against him.

This was unlike any of her fantasies, any of the dreams she had woken from, shaky and wanting and alone in her bed. The details were too clear: his dark outline against the glowing orange fire, the flicker of the candles, the smell of his skin, the feel of his hands, the scratch of his stubble.

He leisurely shifted to fill the void when she parted her thighs for him, content to snake his arms around her, pull her tight to his chest and breathe in her scent, nose buried in her hair just behind her ear.

Entwining her legs with his, she heard herself moan, wanton and impatient and unselfconscious, but he was in no rush.

Raising up on his elbows to look at her, the gentle bow of his lips framed his words.

"I love you."

They were no bedroom cliché. His soul was right there, shining in his eyes, luminescent in the darkness. His body slid into hers, fit so perfectly, stretched and pulled at every nerve.

When he leaned down to meet her mouth, she heard herself answer, lips brushing the words over his.

"Love you, too."

And then he began to move—slow, steady thrusts, angled just right, a tight circle against her at the end of each one. In this position, she had never been able to actually—but now, as his body arced above hers, she found her body clenching in time with the push of his hips, a curl of need already unfurling where their bodies met. Patience, practice, persistence seemed to be at play, because she couldn't remember ever having to work so little to feel so very much.

Leveraging up to meet him, to speed his pace, realization washed over her. He was reading her here, just as he did in every other situation. Familiarity, easy and warm and welcoming, held her in its steadying embrace. They were reading each other.

This was making love.

Her urgency spiked, and her hands encircled his back, fingers linking together to tug him tighter to her body. Muscles bunched beneath her palms as he drove harder inside her, and she felt the first flutters of her climax low in her belly.

His eyes widened as he processed the change in her, the way she stiffened, tightening up around him, waiting for that final spark to tip her over. And as he let go of the rigid rein on his own control, used all his force and weight and desire to find their release together, she felt the tether snap, cried out his name, let the pleasure spiral up, spill from every pore.

"Kate."

That single syllable fell from his lips as he came, spilling hot and wet inside her in time with her body's contractions, filling her full. As the intensity gave way to gentle aftershocks, she found herself pulling him down on top of her, wrapping her legs at his waist to hold him inside her, his head nuzzling into her shoulder, lips whispering his love into her ear.

The feeling of falling-free, terrifying, and bottomless-rushed through her consciousness. And then everything stopped, a jolting shock that tweaked her wrist. Had she cried out? She wasn't sure.

When her eyes opened, it was to cool, solitary darkness, broken only by the gray light filtering in through the blinds. His quiet breathing was the only sound in the room, even and not far from her ear. Turning, she found him curled on his side, facing her where she lay propped in her nest of pillows, one hand tucked under his cheek, the other curled around the edge of the blanket that spanned the distance between them.

The blood simmered hot in her veins, pulse skittered erratically, dancing on the treacherous edge of want. The sensation of his fingers moving over her body refused to fade, as her lungs filled awkwardly with not enough air.

Sliding her hand out from beneath the covers, she allowed it to hover over the soft spiky waves of his hair, barely brushing the tips, teasing herself with the reality of his nearness.

She wanted him.

The need was so acute, so overpowering, she had to shut her eyes against it. Her hand fisted and dropped to the pillow beside him, fingernails digging into her palm in an attempt to steel herself against her body's onslaught.

Counting steadily, she reached one hundred before her breathing smoothed out, two hundred before her heart slowed. No amount of counting would ease the sweet, torturous ache at her core.

With some measure of control in place, her mind began to rationalize.

It had just been a dream, spurred by seeing him half-naked after his shower the morning before, combined with the lingering tenderness of their evening. She had liked the green curry after all, almost as much as she had liked sitting with him on the couch, sharing a blanket, watching hours of Turner Classic Movies until they both dozed off. He had woken her with a gentle grip around her ankle, which had migrated up between his arm and his chest while they slept. Never much of a cuddler, Kate had to admit that the closeness of their quiet evenings hadn't felt claustrophobic. If anything, she was starting to look forward to-okay, enough. Fantasies about snuggling on the couch were not going to help her with her current situation.

With a bit more composure, she opened her lids again, found his still closed. A ripple of disappointment made her flinch, chastise herself for her ridiculousness. The last thing she needed was to throw his big, blue eyes into this situation, hopeful and deep and accommodating. He would do whatever she wanted, and at the moment, what she wanted would only make their impossible situation even more confusing. No, she didn't need to make this any more difficult. Instead, she settled for finding his hand, sliding her own inside it in place of the blanket. The warmth was enough. It would have to be enough, for now.

# * # * # * #

"So you haven't remembered anything yet? An image? A conversation?"

They were at the counter in the kitchen, drinking iced tea. Lanie, perfectly polished as usual, looked Kate up and down like she might be able to see straight through to the state of her memory.

Kate, on the other hand, had barely managed to direct Castle to pin her hair up into a messy bun that morning, and of course she was in yoga pants, the only type she could get into one-handed. She knew her best friend didn't care, but Kate missed looking put together. The giant cast on her arm probably wouldn't qualify as a fashion accessory, nor would it accommodate anything with a tight sleeve, so her wardrobe was understandably limited for the moment.

The look on Lanie's face was verging on concern, so she forced herself out of her reverie to answer, almost truthfully.

"No... I... there's really nothing. I remember fighting with Castle, and the night Roy died, and getting shot. Then I woke up in the hospital with a scar on my chest and a cast on my arm."

And then there was the most amazing sex dream of her entire life, but she didn't see why she should drag that out into the light of day at this point. Her eyes fell to her lap, fingers spun the ring hanging around her neck. Avoiding eye contact was her best option.

"What did the doctors say yesterday?"

Good, yes, talk about medical details.

"Everything with my wrist looks great. They'll change the cast next week."

"And your old buddy, Burke?"

"He made me think a lot."

That was entirely true, so she chanced a look up into soft brown eyes.

"He always does. As long as it's thinking in a good way, I don't have to kick his ass."

That won her a smile. The woman could be pushy, but she always had Kate's best interest at heart.

"It is. It helped. I can see why I liked him."

Sort of like taking your medicine-unpleasant in the moment, but made you feel better in the end.

"Did he have any advice about the memory?"

"No, he just said not to think about it too much. That it would come back on its own."

There was a sigh behind the manufactured lightness in her voice, but she couldn't hide it, not from Lanie. The woman turned on her stool to face Kate more fully, set down her drink.

"I did some reading this week about amnesia-shocking, I know, me, reading about live-people medicine. But I did find one interesting thing. It seems that some people start remembering things in their dreams."

Kate's grip on her tea tightened as her last sip went down the wrong way, sending her into a coughing fit that she was sure would draw Castle out of his office to check on her.

Perceptive as ever, Lanie immediately pounced.

"You _have_ had dreams, haven't you?"

Damn it. There would be no denying it now. She felt the color rise in her cheeks just thinking about all that skin... No dwelling. There would be no dwelling on all that contact-enough.

"I may have had one. Last night. But I'm not actually sure it's a memory."

Lanie's eyes widened, then narrowed as one perfectly-manicured pointer finger extended in Kate's direction.

"Kate Beckett you are blushing, and there is only _one_ kind of dream that makes you this nervous. You had a sex dream about Castle."

Busted. But the best defense was a good offense.

"Lanie! He is right there in the next room; he will _hear_ you!"

She tried to keep her voice to a quiet, whispered screech, but her friend was having none of it.

"You mean you didn't _tell_ him yet? You don't think it's important to mention that you might have _remembered_ something, when the man has been waiting on pins and needles for days?"

At least she had lowered her volume by one order of magnitude.

"I can't exactly bring up a sex dream about him when I can't actually remember what it's like to _have sex_ with him. It would be... awkward."

Her insides squirmed at the thought of it. What if this hadn't even been a memory, just a very detailed fantasy? Then she would be admitting that a significant part of her psyche just wanted to jump him. Immediately.

"Well, you didn't think telling _me_ those kinds of details for the past two years was all that awkward. What? You think I didn't wheedle it out of you eventually?"

That caught Kate's attention. If she had shared _those_ things with Lanie, she must have shared other things, too. And, unlike Burke, her friend would have no qualms about filling her in.

"Did I talk about... how I felt... about this? About him?"

Kate tipped her head toward the office in acknowledgement.

To her credit, Lanie switched out of sass mode at Kate's obvious change in tone.

"Oh, sweetie, of course you did. I know this has to be hard for you, not seeing how you got here from where you were, just getting thrown into the middle of this. He's a pretty overwhelming kind of guy."

From her tone, the ease with which these reassurances flowed, Kate had the feeling there had been other, similar conversations over the years. Lanie forged on, face now in doctor mode, all business and deadly serious.

"I've known you for a long time, and I have never heard you talk about any man the way you talk about Rick Castle. And it's more than that. The man walks into the room, and your whole face lights up. You're both so smitten with each other, it's disgusting."

So maybe she slipped back into sass pretty easily, but her words had seemed sincere.

"Really?"

Kate still had trouble with the idea that she would moon over any man.

"You started talking about having a family a few months ago. _Kids_, Kate. Your whole adult life you have run screaming from even the _mention_ of kids. The idea of having a dog made you twitchy. Do you know that last month you asked me whether your OB had a good reputation for deliveries, so that you could switch before you and Castle started trying?"

Maybe it was the hormones, but she couldn't stop the rush of moisture that welled up. So she really had wanted this, was already planning for it. God, the relief flooded her heart.

Lanie was looking a little... wary of the waterworks, as though she wasn't quite sure how to respond to this new, emotional version of her usually stoic friend. That made two of them.

"I'm pregnant, Lanie."

The words just came out. It was so early, and there was no guarantee there wouldn't be a problem, after all, they had looked at the statistics, and almost half of all pregnancies fail. But frankly, she needed all the help she could get, and Burke's words were on repeat in her mind.

"_You know you're only alone if you want to be."_

Kate just hoped her friend would take the news calmly, not blow things out of proportion. After a beat of motionless silence, Lanie's jaw dropped, her hands reached out and clutched Kate's uncasted one.

"Oh my God... Kate... that's amazing. How did you-?"

She was looking at Kate's belly like maybe she had missed a bump on her way in.

"I don't think I even knew before this happened." She looked down to her cast. "Castle found out when he got to the hospital-they did a pregnancy test before they did anything else, apparently. The ultrasound put me at 4 or 5 weeks."

For all her usual snark, Lanie's eyes looked suspiciously shiny as she scooted closer.

"Are you okay? Are you feeling sick? Do you need anything? My sister swore the only thing that got her through was this fancy ginger ale." With every question, every phrase, her voice rose higher, words came out faster. "She was downing the stuff by the gallon for three months with all four of her kids. Every time she told me she was pregnant, I just bought her a couple cases of this British brand she loved-Fever-something-or-other. I'll order you some this afternoon."

So much for not blowing things out of proportion. It was kind of funny to watch her friend get so flustered. Lanie rarely rambled, but kids were not her specialty.

"I'm fine. Don't buy me a case of imported ginger ale."

The woman's eyes narrowed at her suspiciously.

"You know, the second the word 'fine' comes out of your mouth I stop believing anything you say."

Kate broke free of the vise grip her friend had on her one good hand and tucked it in against the abdomen in question. She was going to come out of this with another cast if she wasn't careful.

She pinned Lanie with her best death glare. She did not want cases of carbonated beverages arriving next week.

"My stomach is fine."

Lanie was suddenly all charm and placation, reaching for her tea, sipping it calmly, keeping her hands to herself.

"Okay, okay. No ginger ale. I guess what I'm really worried about is what's going on inside that bruised, scrambled noggin of yours. Raging hormones come with the territory, and they cannot be helping matters."

Her index finger tapped at her temple, mirroring the spot where Kate's bruise was turning a lovely shade of brownish green.

"I'm handling it."

"Of course you are, for now, but if you don't let that man help you, you're going to freak out eventually. Every pregnant woman does, some multiple times a day. It's just whether or not you're pig-headed enough to insist on doing it alone."

Why did she even bother paying Burke? Oh, right, yes, Burke didn't _sass_. Glancing over toward the office, she injected a little more resentment in her tone than she ought.

"I don't see 'alone' happening anytime soon."

Lanie's eyebrow nearly hit her hairline. Before she opened her mouth, her face was already radiating preachy sarcasm.

"And doesn't that make you a whole hell of a lot luckier than so many single, pregnant women in the world? Kate, Castle loves you. He would do anything for you. He has, more than once. Trust him. Take him at his word. And most importantly, trust yourself. You know him. Even three years ago, you knew him. You can do this, if you do it together."

Pausing, she laid one hand on Kate's knee, palm open, and gave it a little squeeze.

"Now, when do I get to take you shopping for maternity clothes?"

# * # * # * #

"Is there another... fireplace? Somewhere?"

Kate had been acting a little off all day, but now she sounded flat out nervous. Even from his spot at his desk, typing away on his laptop, he could tell she hadn't flipped a page of her book in the hour since Lanie left.

"Besides the one in the dining room? No."

What was she on to, asking about fireplaces, anyway?

"Why do you ask?"

Her eyes flicked up briefly from her lap, and he spotted... embarrassment?

"No reason."

Oh, there was definitely a reason. Probably a really good one. Why on earth would she think there was a fireplace... Huh...

"Well, there are three at the house in the Hamptons. What's going on, Kate?"

The book shut without her place being marked-tantamount to bibliophilic treason in his fiancé's mind. This was serious. But then, everything was serious these days.

"Nothing."

Hitting one final save, he closed the laptop and stood, stretching the kinks from his back. He studied her as he crossed to the couch.

Kate was lying.

The stiffness in her shoulders, the clench of her jaw, the tightness around her eyes were all classic tells.

Holding his tongue, he sat down, relied on the look he gave her, the grip on her ankle where it crossed the other, to convey his meaning. He had made her.

The book shifted to the table, her eyes to the wall just to the left of his face. Her ankle stayed put, and he thought that was a good sign. When her back straightened, shoulders squared off, eyes found his again, he knew he had her.

"I had a dream last night. There was a fireplace in it that I didn't recognize."

A dream? Oh, but maybe not just a dream. Maybe she...

"Do you remember anything about it?"

Her eyes squinted, lips pursed slightly in concentration.

"I think there was an... anchor? But that doesn't make any sense."

His heart fluttered and then clenched hard in his chest, because of _course_ that made sense. That made the best _kind_ of sense. Oh, please, God, let this be true.

He popped up off the couch and knelt at the bottom bookshelf near the bedroom door. One of these had it, he knew it was here somewhere... Yes, perfect. Pulling the heavy leather album out, he took it to the couch, where, meanwhile, she had turned to watch him, a quizzical expression on her face as he dashed around the room. He sat again, plastered up next to her, spread the book between their laps and flipped to the middle.

After the last remodel, his designer had shot photos of all the upstairs bedrooms. His finger trailed down over the clear plastic slots: Alexis', his mother's, the guest room... Flipping another page, he found it-the master bedroom. There was a great shot of the fireplace.

"Is this it? Is this the one from your dream?"

Blood pounded in his ears; his vision began to haze out around the edges as he turned his head to look at her.

Eyes wide, lips parted, she stared down at the photo. Was she holding her breath? And rather than pale, her cheeks were flushing a lovely shade of pink.

"Yes."

The world started to turn again with that one, breathy syllable. Though his voice shook a little, he thought he was remaining remarkably calm.

"That's the house in the Hamptons, Kate. I didn't take you there until a year and a half ago."

Her memory was coming back.

Frozen beside him, with one finger resting on the bottom corner of the photo, she still hadn't spoken.

"What else do you remember from your dream?"

Her voice was distant when she finally answered, still not meeting his gaze.

"I... I don't remember. It's all sort of fuzzy."

Carefully, he slid her hand away from the page, turned to the next one, with a shot of the living room, and the front of the house, the view out the back door to the ocean.

"Do you remember any of these? You've been there enough times that you've seen every inch of the place."

Scanning the photos, she shook her head slightly.

"No. Just the one room."

The flush was now suffusing her neck, spreading down to her chest. And her pupils had gone wide.

"What happened in that dream?"

Panic-this was panic-the white knuckles where her fingers gripped her knee, the controlled intake of air through flared nostrils.

"I don't... I'm not..."

Did she not remember he could tell when she was lying? Blinking hard, he thought back to their early years. Sometimes she had just needed a little extra shove. He remembered exactly what happened, or didn't happen, if he left that Kate to her own devices: she lied to him for a year. So he nudged.

"That's our bedroom, Kate. Were we...?"

Grunting in exasperation, she stared straight ahead and came out with it.

"Sex. We were having really amazing sex, in front of a roaring fire."

He didn't take the time to gloat, though somewhere in the back of his mind he did a fist pump about the fact that of all the things she could have remembered, she had remembered making love first. But more importantly, was this a specific time, or just some vague amalgamation.

"Was it... cold?"

Her head whipped around at his question, snark immediately replacing chagrin.

"Why does _that_ matter?"

Frustration bubbled up, driven by desperation. It _did_ matter.

"Just answer me, okay?"

When she visibly shrank back, he knew he had pushed too far. His Kate would never back down, she would stand toe-to-toe with him in an argument, and they had had plenty. But this Kate, wounded and unsure of anything in her world, handicapped by hormones, this one had a thinner skin. It was up to him to remember that. But before he could take it back, apologize for his outburst, she answered, her own irritation overflowing.

"Yeah, it was freezing; we were huddled down under the covers... and why am I telling you this? It was just some crazy dream my brain made up with the tiny detail of a fireplace I've never seen."

His eyes shut again, this time in gratitude to fate or God or time or whatever had granted him a chance. When he opened them again and took her hand between his, it was with his heart on his sleeve, beating for her, right where she could see.

"No, Kate, it wasn't made up. That was a memory. We were just at the house a couple weeks ago. We went for the weekend after a bad case; it was so last minute that I hadn't called to get Morrie to turn on the heat for us. You made a joke about the quickest way to warm up... and we ended up in bed. Not that we don't always end up in bed anyway, but we were pretty enthusiastic that night."

Searching those hazel eyes, he came up with disappointment. But this was the best news they'd had. Was there something about the memory that was upsetting her? Something he'd forgotten about or not noticed in the first place? His recollection of that night was pretty fantastic... But then again, making love with her always left him a little hazy and floaty and more besotted than ever... But seriously, what was causing the wrinkle between her brows to deepen?

"I don't remember anything else."

Defeat-that's what that tone was. All the hot air from their back-and-forth dissipated with those words, and that was not acceptable. At least this was something he could work with. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he strong-armed her in close, felt her give way, sink into his side, head drooping until her hair tickled the soft skin below his ear.

"It's okay; it's all gonna come back. I know it is. We'll just fill in the blanks until then."

A minute passed in silence-maybe two. His brain started calculating with the slow rise and fall of her breathing.

"You know, I hadn't thought about it until now, but with the timing..."

Based on what they had read about measuring pregnancy, how far along she was, when things would have had to happen... But he couldn't really be sure.

"What? What about the timing?"

His thought, spoken aloud before he could think better of it, seemed to have revived her. Straightening up, she left her hand where it had settled on his chest, the intensity, the spark of hope returning as she looked at him. And why shouldn't he tell her his guess? On a dark day, this was one possibility of joy they could both share.

"I think that was the weekend we conceived. You remembered making this baby with me, Kate."

**# * # * # * # **

**A/N: Long wait for this one. Tumblr anon asks and tweets and lovely reviews are all MUCH appreciated, because if you are asking, I know you care. I hope you haven't given up... Alex, I know you haven't yet. Thanks for the occasional UNWARRANTED WARNING WOLVERINE. Good motivation, whether for sprinting or speed-editing. ;) See? I finished it tonight like I promised. Now where's my Hugh Jackman? Hmm? Really. I'm waiting up to buzz him in...**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	10. Chapter 10

**Rewound Chapter Ten**

"Hey, Espo. Got something."

The phone rattled as Ryan hung up from whomever he'd been questioning.

Esposito looked up from where he he'd been scanning through financials on their truck-driver, coming up with exactly nothing. Again. The guy was squeaky clean. Shutting the file, he rose to meet his partner.

"Tip?"

Spending their weekend off digging deeper into Beckett's accident had started as a favor to Castle, and since Lanie was busy doing "girl things" with Beckett anyway, he didn't really mind. But despite his best efforts to stall Castle's crazy conspiracy theory with hard evidence, some things they had found, and not found, were starting to bug him. The truck was nowhere. Disappeared into thin air.

Ryan was already sliding his arms into his jacket as Esposito rounded his desk.

"I think we found our truck. Scrap yard in Jersey." He gestured to a Google map on his screen.

"Road trip?"

# * # * # * #

The yard wasn't hard to find _at all_; once they got to East Brunswick, it was a quick left just past the seven deserted industrial warehouses and a right at the second cow pasture. And now he had some undetermined combination of dirt, manure, and automotive fluids caked to his work boots. This would teach his fashionista of a partner to wear wing tips for going rogue in Jersey.

"You think anyone's here?" Ryan called out from deep in the neatly ordered rows of cars in the next dusty lot over.

Esposito stood on a slight rise, scanning for vehicles big enough to be their target. They had already checked out the trailer near the entrance, found it empty but recently occupied, coffee mug still steaming on the beat-up metal desk inside.

"Don't know; this was your intel." A cow lowed in the distance. "I'm all for picnics in the countryside, but I probably wouldn't have picked East Bumf-"

"You guys lookin' for me?"

The owner of the Jersey accent-a very large, very hairy, middle-aged gentleman with serious ink-stepped out from behind a half-smashed Mack truck. Dude looked the part of a scrap yard owner straight out of central casting.

Flashing his badge, Esposito closed the distance between them, his partner trotting up behind.

"Detective Esposito. This is my partner, Detective Ryan. I think you two spoke on the phone."

"Charley Groves. You guys are a little ways out for city cops."

The small mountain of a man eyed Ryan's maroon, Argyle sweater vest warily, reached out a grimy hand in Esposito's direction. Esposito was no slouch with a handshake, but this guy nearly took his arm off. He side-glanced Ryan with a warning grimace, but it was too late. Ryan's eyes bugged out at the initial clasp, but otherwise he stayed cool, tried to hide his careful finger flexing behind his back after Charley released him.

"So you're looking for that delivery truck, right? It's over this way. You can have a look. Not sure what for, since it's good and truly wrecked. Wouldn't wanna see whoever came outta the car this baby ran into. Probably wasn't much left of 'em."

Seeing the front end of the truck, he understood what the guy meant. Beckett was a lucky son of a gun, memory loss and broken wrist notwithstanding.

Ryan stopped to question Charley while Esposito slipped on a pair of gloves and opened the passenger side door, climbing up inside for a look around.

"How'd it get here, anyway?"

Nothing looked amiss. Brake and accelerator, steering wheel, gearshift, gauges all seemed normal. He slid into the driver's seat to test the pedals. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"When I got here this morning, it was just sitting here, no phone call, no paperwork. Nice little present on a Saturday morning. Parts'll go for a pretty penny."

But something was still off. For a Manhattan delivery truck, this cab looked awfully clean. _Wiped_ clean, even. No coffee spills in the cup holders. No fast food trash on the floor. Either their driver had a serious case of OCD, or someone had beaten them to the punch. Ducking down for a closer inspection under the dash, he lost track of the conversation outside. When he surfaced moments later, Ryan was trying to avoid another handshake.

"If you hear anything, anybody contacts you about it, call me at this number." Espo caught the flash of his partner's card as the detective scribbled his cell number on the back. They were keeping this whole thing on the down-low unless they actually found something.

"Will do."

Hopping down, he flanked Ryan, chimed in.

"And could you do us a favor and not scrap it or sell it until we can get some guys down to give it another once-over?"

"I got nothin' but time, Detectives. You let me know when you're through with her."

Taking one for the team, he reached out his hand again, tried to go in prepared, still struggled not to wince at the steel cinch of his grip.

"And don't mention any of this to... anyone."

Ryan had his most earnest face on, which, considering how ridiculously sincere he looked without even trying, was impossible to refuse.

"I never seen ya's.'"

And there went the hand vise again... Ouch, that had to hurt...

"Thanks."

Charley lumbered back toward the entrance as they ducked down at the wheels of the truck, peered underneath.

"Anything up front?"

Pulling a flashlight from his pocket, Esposito shone it up into the undercarriage.

"Not a speck of dust."

Cars, he knew. Trucks this size were another animal entirely. His best hope was that they would find something obvious, shoot a photo or two to take back with them, maybe call in a favor to get a mechanic down.

"Somebody get to it already?"

If they had something legit, he'd get CSU in, too.

"Unless Martha Stewart took up truck-driving, I would say yes."

The beam of his partner's flashlight stopped on the visible portion of the wheel nearest him, which was in pretty bad shape, tire half off the rim, guts of the wheel that shouldn't be visible clearly in view.

"These pads are definitely shot. Shine your light this way?"

"Whoa. How do you know about trucks, bro?"

Espo reached at an odd angle to turn his light on the same front wheel, rubbing his sleeve up against the road grime on the undercarriage. His partner was right-one brake pad was roughed up, sticking out on one side, and even taking into account the condition of the wheel, it looked worn.

"Truck brakes and car brakes both use the same basic kinda pads."

Well, duh, he knew that. Not the point. Ryan continued, a hint of snark leaking through.

"I thought you were Mr. Muscle Car?"

"I AM Mr.-I know something about cars, sure."

But trucks had the whole air brake system going on, and cars were fluid-based-and what the hell? This was Honeymilk spouting off about truck parts.

"Just because I don't own a muscle car doesn't mean I don't know a thing or two. I got an uncle upstate who works on trucks. Spent a summer with him during high school."

Ah, the infamous Ryan family-an uncle for every occasion.

Ryan already had his phone out, snapping photos.

"So you think this goes with the driver's story? Slammed on the brakes, couldn't stop, veered into her cruiser?"

"I think it does. Couldn't hurt to have somebody come take a look who really knows what they're talking about, though. I'm still waiting on the maintenance records. Big company like Icarus has its trucks on a regular schedule just so this sort of thing won't happen. Office is having some trouble finding the paperwork, though. Got the name of the shop from them, if you wanna go check it out in person."

Climbing out from underneath the truck, Esposito brushed himself off as best he could, noticed his partner was spic and span. Gesturing toward the spotless sweater vest, he glared suspiciously.

"Man, how'd you do that?"

Shrugging his shoulders as he pocketed his phone, Ryan gave a smug little smile and quirked an eyebrow.

"Easy. Spot the dirty stuff and make you touch it instead."

# * # * # * #

Castle had just finished prepping vegetables for stir-fry when his phone buzzed.

"Esposito, what's going on? Found anything?"

His last conversation with either of the boys had been two days ago, and he was starting to think they had given up on looking into the circumstances surrounding the wreck.

"Beckett there with you?"

"She went for a walk, why?"

She had been climbing the walls ever since she awoke on the couch an hour before, where he had let her nap against his shoulder after their conversation about her dream. Her new-found propensity to pass out was turning out to be his only source of cuddling time, so he was taking every advantage.

"Castle, I think you'd better go find her, keep an eye on her until we get a few things straightened out."

His blood pressure instantly shot up.

"Why? What's wrong? You found something, didn't you?"

Esposito's voice was tight, careful.

"Let's just say a couple of details aren't adding up."

He was already halfway into shoes and jacket, with the phone on speaker.

"What? What doesn't add up? The truck?"

"No, the truck's brakes were shot. Saw them myself. But the maintenance record is missing. Ryan and I are at the shop right now, though. We just talked to the guy who does all the work on the Icarus trucks. Says he's had every one in over the past two months for their annual. Just finished the last of them this week."

Out the door and down the hall, he had to interrupt so he wouldn't miss anything.

"About to go in the stairwell. Hang on a sec."

What was it with him flying down these stairs chasing after her lately? Maybe he could get a fireman's pole installed. Much more efficient, and easier on the knees.

"Okay, I'm out."

Clarence was manning the desk, and Castle mimed his question and was waved out the door and to the left.

"So our friend, Eddie, here swears he checked the brakes on all sixty trucks. If the pads were less than 5 millimeters, he replaced them. Company policy, which is way more strict than the DOT standard of 3.2. They carry heavy cargo, so they're paranoid about stopping on a dime in city traffic. The truck we saw at the scrap yard today? The front pad had to be down to 1 or 2 millimeters at most; either one of the fleet just happened to get missed, or somebody switched out that truck's brake pads."

Shit.

Shit.

He knew it. He knew it, and still he had let her leave, go for a walk on the streets of New York out where anyone could see her, get to her. Instinctively, his eyes scanned the rooftops, watching for a flash, movement, anything out of place. Meanwhile, Esposito was still speaking in his ear. He took off in the direction Clarence had pointed.

"Mechanic's gonna go take a look himself, see if there's been obvious tampering when the lot opens first thing tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm thinking we may need to pull Gates into this. I can call in a favor with CSU, get a team out there, keep it under wraps, even though it's Jersey. But if any of this turns out to be true, we're going to need resources."

But if this was as big as he thought, resources would draw attention, and he couldn't afford to have Bracken, or Jerry Tyson, or whomever was probably watching them like a hawk, get on to the fact that they were suspicious.

"Esposito, can you just keep it quiet another day-until the mechanic checks it out? I don't want to tip our hand until we have something solid. I'll keep Kate with me, get some private guys on the building, take precautions. But if whomever this is could pull this off and come away so clean, they must have eyes and ears everywhere."

There was a pause and he heard static, like a hand was being held over the mic on the phone.

When Esposito spoke again, there was steel behind his voice.

"We'll keep this from Gates until tomorrow, but if we're going to pursue this any further, Ryan and I won't do it without her support. We're not gonna have a repeat of the last time."

At the intersection, Castle stood waiting for traffic, weighing paths, directions. One wrong turn... He remembered the last time a little too well. Bruises over her windpipe, mottling the skin along her ribs, her hip, her shoulder. The images would taint an otherwise glorious memory of their first night together for the rest of his life. No, the boys were right, Gates needed to be involved. First thing tomorrow.

"Castle, you okay?"

The sharp words snapped him out of the bleakness of that memory.

"Yeah, yeah. Just trying to think where she would go."

Rolling the dice, he jogged across the street.

"Might help if you hung up with me and called her."

Shit.

"Right. Keep me in the loop, okay? Gotta go."

Clicking off, he immediately hit 2 on his speed dial, kept moving up the block.

One ring, two. At the start of the third he felt the blood start to pound in his ears. He had a bad feeling.

His heart clenched at the thought of losing her-losing them-when they were so close to getting everything back.

"Please pick up. Please pick up. Come on."

# * # * # * #

When Kate stepped inside the store, the scent of mint and cinnamon tickled her nose. The combination was odd, but refreshing.

It had been time for her to get out of the loft, get out from under Castle's watchful eye for a while. She wasn't used to all this sitting still. When she had scanned their pile of dressing supplies in the bathroom, found that they were down to their last roll of tape, it gave her a mental excuse to take a walk. At first he'd been reluctant to let her leave alone, especially when she was vague about where she was going, but when she'd given him an exasperated glare, threatened to take Lanie up on her earlier offer to have a sleepover at her place, he'd changed his tune.

All that pent up energy was already starting to burn off as she crossed the expanse of beige Berber carpet toward the shelves of merchandise. Scanning the aisles, she quickly found the bandages, grabbed a couple of rolls of wide tape, a few extra packages of gauze squares.

The route to the checkout line led her past the greeting card display, and the birthday cards stood out in glittered, foil-embossed glory. One with a cartoon of a Super Dad, complete with billowing cape and golden "D" emblazoned across the dark-haired man's broad chest, caught her eye, and she stopped to pull it out. Obviously geared for a kid, it read "Daddy, you will always be my hero. Have a super birthday." April first wasn't too far away. Less than a month, actually. But what was she even thinking? A birthday card from their child? The kid wasn't even big enough to show up on an ultrasound.

"My husband loved that one. Little Bill gave him all the Superman movies on DVD, and now it's their manly bonding time, watching Christopher Reeve leap tall buildings. I'm terrified I'll come home one night to find them both on the roof of the garage trying to practice flying."

Kate turned to find a familiar face-rosy cheeks pulled wide in a smile, hair gathered up in a ponytail on the very top of her head, a bright pink ribbon tied in a bow trailing down.

"Hannah-it's good to see you."

And she meant it. The sight of the perky clerk boosted her spirits, which she hadn't realized were flagging.

"Good to see you, too. You gettin' that for the new Proud Papa?"

Grabbing the matching red envelope, Hannah tucked it behind the card in Kate's hand.

"Uh, I guess so. His birthday is next month, and he, uh, likes comic books."

Kate smiled self-consciously. Explaining that her man-child of a partner sometimes thought he _was_ a comic book character to strangers was always a little tricky.

"He's gotten a great present already, huh?" she pointed in the direction of Kate's still-flat tummy, a twinkle in her eye.

Huh. Kate wouldn't have really thought of it that way, but the look on his face every time they talked about the... pregnancy-the _baby_- was sort of like that of a kid on Christmas morning. A pang of guilt hit her at that thought.

"Pardon me if I'm oversteppin' here, but you _sure_ look better today than when I saw you last time."

Kate huffed out a low chuckle at the truth of that observation, surprised at how much different the past few days looked with some perspective. Some perspective, and the possibility that she had one real, honest-to-god memory back, even if it had been in a dream.

"I was having a rough night. I'm glad I ran into you today, because I wanted to thank you for what you said, for coming up to me then. It helped."

Hannah demured, waving her off with the flip of a wrist.

"I helped you pick out vitamins. I was just bein' neighborly; you looked like you'd lost your last friend."

How right she was.

"I thought I had, actually."

The woman looked at her with the softness of understanding in her bright green eyes.

"I just went on my break. You wanna take me up on that rain check for tea? Morrie's got this special peppermint cinnamon one they've been brewing all day, and the mint's been makin' me wanna try it so bad. I blame Shirelle," she pointed to her bump, a little more visible under her fitted sweater without her apron, then scrunched her nose, squinted her eyes, shook her head. "LeAnn? Ugh. Girl's names are so much harder than boy's. My husband wants to name her after his grandmother, _Lula Mae_. I am on a mission to come up with something to distract him from that brilliant idea." Her eye roll rivaled Beckett's at the mention of her husband's pick.

Kate found herself following as Hannah wove in and out of aisles toward the back of the store. Sitting down on a tall stool at the counter, she listened as Hannah called a complicated order for herself involving almond milk and extra honey to the barista, as well as a simple "Special-tea of the Day" for Kate.

This woman had an aura of friendliness glowing around her, if Kate actually believed in all that aura crap, which she didn't. Seriously. But if she did, Hannah's would definitely be purple. The stupid store must be rubbing off on her.

The tea was amazing. Whatever new age hippie paraphernalia might be in the windows, they had the beverages down.

Hannah had told her most of her life's story by the time her mug was half-empty, and despite her eagerness to approach Kate, she had been surprisingly polite about not asking her many questions. At the end of a story about an extremely friendly pig and a very full corn crib, Kate was laughing out loud, totally heedless of other customers, mind completely distracted by the lilt of the woman's accent, the vivid descriptions of her family's farm, a world so completely foreign that she could lose herself in it.

"How did you ever get out?"

Kate took a sip of her tea to get control of herself.

"Let's just say it involved my daddy, a ladder, a rope, and a couple of poses my yoga instructor couldn't have invented."

"You do yoga?"

"I do. Kind of addicted. And my studio has a special pregnant yoga class that I've been going to. You should come-they have it most evenings. It's just down the block at Yoga Works. Even if you don't usually do yoga, my OB says it's great for balance as things start to get looser and shift around. But with your arm, maybe you should wait a bit."

It sounded perfect, actually. Kate wasn't sure if she had started going to classes in Castle's neighborhood since she had moved in. She had been more of a do-it-yourself type because of her work schedule, never predictably finished in time for a regular class. But if she would be at a desk for the foreseeable future, she might as well take advantage.

"Oh, no, actually, my orthopedist told me I could exercise as long as I didn't put weight on it. And I've been doing yoga for years."

"Do you mind my pokin' my nose in and askin' what happened?"

Hannah gestured toward her arm and then her head, looking slightly timid for the first time since Kate had laid eyes on her.

"Oh, not at all. I was just in a car accident. Broke my wrist, got a concussion."

The woman's eyebrows shot up.

"Right after you found out you were pregnant? Gosh, poor thing, no wonder you were so shook up the other night."

Hannah drained the last of her tea, slid the mug back to the barista. Kate focused the dregs of her own cup.

"It was before I found out, I think."

Hannah looked at her quizzically.

"My memory is still a little fuzzy, actually."

Before the woman could comment, Kate's phone chimed with the theme from _The Pink Panther_, and Castle's face flashed across the screen. He couldn't leave her alone for half an hour? She contemplated hitting "ignore," just to make a point.

# * # * # * #

If it went to voicemail, he was calling in the cavalry, prying eyes be damned.

"Castle?"

His breath came back in a whoosh, relief making him dizzy.

"Kate. Where are you? Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm fine. I'm at Zen Vitamin."

There was a lightness in her voice he hadn't heard since before the accident.

"Oh. Why are you there?"

Suddenly the place she wouldn't set foot in was her new favorite hang-out?

"We needed more tape. The roll was almost out. I'm having some tea while I'm here. What's going on?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Just wondered if I could, uh, join you?"

He knew he sounded too shrill, too wound up to fly under her radar.

"I'm almost done here. Weren't you in the middle of cooking dinner? I was coming right back."

It was pretty thin, but he banked on the fact that he had been acting clingy for days.

"Just... Missed you. I'll meet you there. We could probably use some more gauze anyway."

"I already got more gauze. You don't have to meet me."

"Almost there. See you in a minute."

By the time he reached the Chakra poster, he was nearly done with his call to the private security firm. They would have two men outside the loft at all times, and someone to tail them whenever they left the building. He was just clicking off when she stepped out onto the sidewalk, small paper bag slung over her casted arm. Smiling indulgently, she spoke first.

"Hey."

Closing the distance, she fell into step beside him, a healthy-looking glow on her cheeks.

"Hey, yourself."

"I think I found a yoga class."

That certainly wasn't what he'd been expecting to hear. Chased by shadowy figures, hunted by snipers, kidnapped and taken to Paris-sure, but yoga class?

"Really? That's great."

"Yeah, a woman that works here goes to one specifically for pregnancy, and she invited me to go with her. I think I will."

It _was_ great. Great that she was going to get to do something she loved, and great that she'd managed to make a friend, and apparently a pregnant one at that. It was all great, except for the fact that he would now be forced to take up yoga in order to accompany her to the class. Damn. He was just not _that_ bendy. At least not without specific goals in mind-goals that usually involved mutual gratification without an audience.

Things were settling down inside his chest now that he had her in his sight. Not that the chill wasn't still stiffening his spine as he stood between her and the curb, directing her close to the walls of the buildings, further from the street or any lookout's line of sight as they walked.

Seemingly content in silence, she swung her hips over, bumped his gently. It was a gesture she had used so many times, both before and since they had gotten together. For a split second, he could imagine they were back there, walking home from running errands on a lazy Saturday, on their way to make some dinner.

Her mood had changed so drastically, he couldn't figure out what was different, what could have happened in the hour since he'd seen her last. But whatever it was, he hoped it would happen more often. He was going to have to tell her about... things. And soon. But she looked so ridiculously happy right then that he couldn't bring himself to ruin their night. There would be plenty of time for darkness, for now he wanted to have a moment in the light.

And then she did that shy little thing where she looked halfway at him, head dipped down, lids at half-mast, eyes screened behind the fan of her lashes, hint of a smile painting her lips. He could have sworn it was his Kate looking out through those twinkling eyes.

"So what were your grandparents' names, anyway?"

# * # * # * #

Esposito's eyes were starting to glaze over as he scanned through the accident report for the fiftieth time. Things were starting to run together, and Lanie was subtly nudging him with yet another text message about their late dinner at her place.

Everything pulled into focus again as Ryan rounded the corner from the direction of the closet where he had been combing through traffic cam footage, ATMs, any camera they could find within a block of the accident. He was shaking his head.

"Find anything, bro?"

His partner skirted around his desk, dropped heavily in his chair, the line of his mouth downturned in a frown.

"That's just it. There is no footage. Traffic cams were all out of service, or pointed in other directions. The ATM had an armored car parked in front of it, blocking the view. Nine cameras on that intersection, and every single one was a bust."

A chill went down Esposito's spine.

"I'm calling our mechanic friend, see if he'll go out to Jersey tonight. CSU should be done by now."

He punched the number of the shop into his landline phone, listened as it rang five times, six. Finally, someone picked up on the other end. He heard muffled yelling in the background before an exasperated voice answered.

"West Side Brakes."

"Is Eddie there?"

"Sorry, but my idiot mechanic quit two hours ago. Took his last paycheck and ran outta here so fast I couldn't catch him to kick him in the ass."

The click resonated in Esposito's ear long after the line went dead. Setting the receiver back in place, he clenched the muscles of his jaw, looked across to his friend, his expression unreadable.

"Kevin, we've got a problem."

**# * # * # * # **

**A/N: Not quite so long of a wait this time. Thanks for so much support, everyone. Alex, your many talents never cease to amaze me. Readers, the woman has a way with woodwinds, and that's all I'm saying about it. Also, Joy, thanks for coming across this link and thinking of me. I wish it were still going! For all those who love Michael Dorn/Dr. Burke/Lt. Worf as much as I do, this rocks. Until next time!**

**www dot giantfreakinrobot dot com slash sci slash lt-commander-worf-movie dot html**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	11. Chapter 11

**Rewound Chapter Eleven **

"Why is the there a tennis theme on St. Patrick's Day?"

Seriously, he knew next to nothing about tennis, except that Venus and Serena were probably the two most badass women in sports.

"I don't know, Castle. Maybe the _Times_' crossword staff got tired of leprechaun clues. There are only so many puzzles you can make out of the words 'fairy' and 'clover' and 'rainbow.'"

"Sounds like the attendance roster at Alexis' preschool."

That got a begrudging smile out of her for the first time all day, and the tiniest huff of a chuckle.

Every time she had to ask for help, it put Kate in a sour mood for at least an hour. And that morning, she had blushed scarlet, dropped her eyes, and tried to back out three times before he finally got the request out of her.

_She was drenched in the shower, had already had his help washing her hair and scrubbing that spot in the middle of her back he knew she couldn't reach, when she cracked open the door to find his eyes in the mirror. He was nearly finished shaving, just washing the remnants of foam from his cheeks and neck, when he noticed the piercing green reflected over his shoulder._

"_What is it? That's your 'I need something but I'm being too stubborn to ask for it' look."_

_Her nose scrunched in annoyance. What? He couldn't help it if he could read her like a book after writing, well, five and a half books about her..._

_Stepping into the cloud of steam billowing through the glass door, he kept his eyes squarely on hers, as he had every single time he was allowed to help her in the bathroom. He might be a man, and a very healthy, energetic, young man at that, but he was capable of restraining himself. At least for the time being._

"_It's stupid. Not important. Really. Never mind. I'll... deal with it later."_

"_Beckett, come on. You're letting all the steam out. Either tell me what it is and let me in, or shut the door so you don't freeze."_

_He wasn't about to mention the source of his knowledge of her body temperature, the tiny slip - his millisecond-long glance at her very taut, very pink nipples, glistening in the misty - oh holy - never mind. Eyes. He was focusing on her eyes._

_The crack in the door widened; apparently he was admitted._

_Stepping into his usual corner, out of the stream of water and in reach of her body wash and shampoo, he looked at her expectantly._

"_Well?"_

"_My under-arm."_

"_What about your under-arm?"_

"_I can't quite reach it."_

"_But you said the loofah got everywhere - -that first day, I offered -"_

"_Not to wash, Castle. I can't reach it with my razor."_

_Oh. OH. _

_There was something oddly erotic about being allowed - being asked - to wield a sharp object near her, scrape it against her tender skin. Treating it like his own face, he lathered the spot with her shaving foam, carefully snapped the plastic cover off her disposable razor, made a mental note to buy her a pack of his brand with the gel strip and three blades. _

_Her arm extended above her head, elbow pointing toward the ceiling, creating a hollow and a swell, a landscape that required precision and skill. _

_He rose to the task, if he did say so himself, and she only giggled once. The high-pitched girly laugh prompted the completely inappropriate thought that at least she still remembered being ticklish there._

_In retrospect, he might have made a slightly larger deal out of it that was absolutely warranted, but from that angle, the curve of her breast was infinitely distracting, and he really did have to slide his fingers along the silky skin over her triceps to make sure he didn't slip. After all, he wouldn't want to give her a nick._

_After he rinsed the razor and she stepped into the spray, he vacated the shower post haste, realizing his thoughts were verging on NC-17, involving those long limbs and muscled thighs and exactly what he could do to her with the steam-warmed tile wall for leverage. What he had done to her on more than one occasion, if he was perfectly accurate._

Unfff. The memory was still on replay in the far left corner of his parietal lobe four hours later.

Sitting on his sofa, French toast, decaf coffee and prenatal multivitamins all safely digesting in her belly, they were stretched out under a blanket, NPR wafting through from the office.

"None of these clues make sense."

"You want to keep whining like a five-year-old, or do you want my help?"

That notion brought a massive grin to his face. This was their Sunday morning ritual, and she was falling right back into it with barely a nudge from him. Correction, this was their Sunday morning ritual _minus_ the hour of sleepy, lazy, long-lingering love-making under the covers. God, he loved Sundays off...

Crossword. Yes. Clues. Solving puzzles. Their other favorite pastime.

Scooting over to the middle of the sofa, he folded the paper so only the portion of the page with the puzzle was showing, laid it across their laps, passed her the pen.

Her eyes were already scanning the clues, flitting over the "across" and pausing to scribble in scrawling block letters on two clues about halfway down the list. Low-hanging fruit first, she always said.

"You gonna keep staring at me, or are you going to help?"

Blinking out of his reverie, he scanned through the "down" clues again, aiming to use her new entries to help with the ones he was stuck on.

But just as he was about to grab the pen to fill in "octomom" for 35 down, she turned to him with her best condescending glare.

"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't even read this clue. 116 across? Luke Skywalker's volley?"

Oh, he had given up before he got to the 100s. Star Wars in his crossword? He snatched the pen as he answered triumphantly.

"Return of the Jedi!"

"Even I know that one, and I was three the year it came out."

"Ouch. Really? I was... fourteen? How are you even marrying me?"

Damn it. That was not supposed to be out loud. Perfect morning, ruined by his big mouth.

But to his astonishment, she was smiling at him as his insides churned, and she stole the pen back, scribbled in another answer before glancing up through her lashes, the tease dripping from her lips.

"You know what they say, girls mature faster than boys. You're starting to catch up, though."

Did she seriously just _wink_ at him? _Seriously_? This had to be his Kate. Trying hard not to project, he focused on the paper once again.

And then his eye snagged on 4 down: six letters, starting with "A," meaning "ever."

"Got one."

Capping the pen, she started to hand it over, but he tipped his head at the folded newsprint.

"4 down."

Confusion flashed in the instant before she uncapped their shared writing instrument, trailed it down to the indicated number, tip floating just off the cream-toned paper.

Her pause was brief, but ink met paper soon enough, her bold strokes filling each box, so round and bright compared to his straight, regimented "A."

When she was done, she closed the pen again, her shoulders rising on a measured inhale.

"Always."

Maybe he was imagining the weight, the depth of those two syllables as they rolled off her tongue. Maybe he was reading too much into the way her thigh shifted against his, warm and smooth and steady under the blanket. But when her eyes found his, soft smile tugging up the corners of her mouth, he knew he hadn't fabricated the glow behind them, the pink of her cheeks, the shy hesitation of her hand as she transferred the pen to his fingers.

Closing his hand over hers, he stroked his thumb against the delicate anatomy, the silky skin stretched over muscle and bone, watched her pupils grow, her lips part. The connection between them sparked hot and fast, and he couldn't help the flutter in his chest, the sudden tingling of awareness down his spine. Caught up in the closeness, the ease of it, he leaned in, let his breath out against her lips, took in the shock in her expression, but registered the same excitement, anticipation that must have been radiating off him in waves.

She moved toward him, was nearly there-

"Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?"

They jumped apart when the COPS theme blared out from his cell phone. So much for progress.

Castle reached for the offending device, thumbed across the screen to answer the call, and tried to stand, half-tripped over the blanket, which had become entwined around his legs during his migration across the couch. Something was obviously up if the boys were calling him on a Sunday afternoon.

"Hello?"

"Castle, we've got an update."

Ryan's voice was wary, too quiet for his liking. Castle made his way to the bedroom, tried to shut the door quietly so as not to alert Kate to his attempt at subterfuge.

"Did your mechanic find something?"

"Unfortunately, we can't even _find_ our mechanic. Up and quit his job last night. Hasn't been seen since."

Not good. Disappearing witnesses sounded an awful lot like...

"You think it's Bracken?"

"We don't think it's anything, not until we have proof. And all we have is one blonde hair from CSU's sweep of the truck. But it could have come from anywhere from Times Square to the Jersey Turnpike."

Exasperation was coming through loud and clear. Castle wondered if either of the boys had even slept the night before.

"What about the footage from the intersection?"

"That's the fishiest part. All the cameras were either malfunctioning, pointed another way, or blocked. There _is_ no footage."

"How can that be?"

This was 3XK smoke and mirrors all over again.

"No idea. At this point, all we've got is the name of a witness mentioned in the accident report: an off-duty EMT who stopped when he saw the wreck. We're trying to track him down."

At least that was something, if he hadn't fallen off the face of the earth.

"Have you told Gates?"

"Esposito is on the phone with her. You guys should come down tomorrow, if Beckett's up to it. Gates will have questions."

Castle had known that was coming. Kate would insist anyway, eventually.

"She's up to it. We can come now."

"No, stay where you are until we have something. No reason to get her out in the open for no good reason. Espo wants to send a car to watch your place tonight."

"No, I've got my own people outside. Besides, Kate will spot a car."

Some tiny part of him cheered at the 180 degree shift; as awful as it was to have his paranoia validated, at least he knew his instincts had been right all along. It gave him a focus for all the nervous energy, an actual mystery to solve instead of just a nebulous feeling that things were not _right_. Ryan's pointed censure brought a pang of guilt.

"You haven't told her yet? Her life could be in danger. The Beckett I know wouldn't appreciate being kept in the dark."

His pride, his heart, remembered all too well her reaction to his attempts to protect her. And that was the last memory he wanted to relive.

"I know. I know. I'm going to tell her."

When he clicked off, he struggled against the feeling of suffocation, fingers of doubt and dread curling around his windpipe, squeezing, blocking the breath from filling his lungs.

He did _not_ want to have this conversation.

He _had_ to have this conversation. Damn it.

Time to face her, and everything in their past he had thought was finally firmly behind them.

# * # * # * #

"You waited a year to tell me you had a lead on my mother's murder? On the man who shot me? Castle, how could you keep that from me?"

Her brain couldn't process this information. While he'd been on the phone in the bedroom, she had spotted the security he'd hired, sitting across the street in full view outside the front windows. When he reappeared, looking shaky, pale, nervous, she had confronted him about why he had been acting so strangely – too clingy even for him - since he found her at the store the night before. And when he had spouted a conspiracy theory about her accident not being an accident, she had scoffed.

Not everything was CIA or aliens or serial killers out to get her. But then he launched into the story of her shooting, telling her about Montgomery's friend, Smith, and his file, and exactly how long Castle had kept that information from her.

He was telling the story standing still as stone, keeping his eyes half closed and directed out the window, hiding from her anger, she imagined. But at her fierce words, his spine straightened, and suddenly he rounded on her, words flying out of his mouth as a barely restrained scream, notes high pitched and breaking.

"I just told you, they were going to _kill_ you, Kate. What part of this are you still having trouble understanding? This man _will_ kill you. It's only a matter of _when_."

The late afternoon light caught the tears streaming down his face as he turned, body vibrating, muscles straining, eyes sharp and drilling into hers. She had never seen him like this, his control pushed to the point of cracking, glimpses of his tender, gentle, desperate heart showing through. Watching him, her protector, her best friend, rage and crumble in front of her, because of her - it was too much. The clench in her chest was a fist, slowly squeezing until she couldn't breathe, could only watch in horrible silence as he continued.

His words were menacingly quiet when he inhaled through flared nostrils and spoke again.

"I wasn't the only one keeping secrets, Beckett."

She found her voice and volleyed back, a flame of fury coming to life at his accusatory tone.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Taking one measured step toward her, and another, he closed in, his look morphing to predatory.

"You lied to me when you woke up in that hospital three years ago. You told me you didn't remember what I said to you before you..."

His voice broke yet again, his body deflated visibly with whatever memory he was reliving - a memory she no longer had. The knot in her chest tightened.

"Kate, I watched you die in that ambulance. I blamed myself."

Feeling wetness on her cheeks, she wondered vaguely when she had started crying, too. He wasn't finished, though by the clench of his jaw, the ice in his next words, she wished he were.

"And then you lied, and disappeared, and I didn't find out until almost _a year_ later that you knew all along. I was _so_ angry. I gave up - on you, on us, on everything."

What had they done to each other? How could they ever have fixed this jagged, shattered mess of a friendship, relationship, whatever they were? A voice inside her head was screaming at her to fix it now, to do whatever it took to stop the clawing dread trying to force the air from her lungs. Wiping at her cheeks, she made a decision - a decision not to be that coward anymore. Battling back the leaden fear weighing down her feet, she stepped toward him, stretched out her hand to find his.

"How did we end up... here? Together?"

Castle's eyes shifted skittishly over her features, but he didn't step back, didn't give in to the shock so obviously coloring his expression. It was clear that he hadn't expected the change in tactic, her advance, her little moment of bravery. Or maybe worse, he'd been counting on her retreat. But he did eventually answer: careful words through cautious lips.

"It was you. You came to me... after you went off on your own to try to take down the man who shot you, after he tried to throw you off a roof."

It was her turn for surprise - alone?

"Why was I alone?" Her words were barely a whisper, but she refused to release her hold on his fingers.

"Because when I told you about Smith - what the stakes were if you went after your mother's killer again, told you if my feelings meant anything at all to you that you had to stop, you plowed right on through."

His lids finally shut, tried to hide the pain that memory brought. But she had seen it — the flash of guilt swamping the spark of anger, all but extinguished in the sea of darkness.

"I couldn't watch you die again."

His words ripped at her heart, broken and damaged yet again, perpetually.

"But I went after him anyway."

It wasn't a question. She knew herself, knew exactly to what lengths she would go for justice for her mother, even if it meant the end of whatever future she might have had with him.

He still wouldn't open his eyes, even when he nodded, kept going.

"And afterward, you showed up at my door, told me that when you almost died again…"

Closing the final distance between them, she stepped into his space, made sure her face would eclipse his view once he got the courage, or the composure, to take in this reality again. Desperate to bring him out of the memory, she let go of his hand to trace her fingertips along his jaw.

"What?"

Dark pupils rimmed by thin, icy slivers of blue blinked down at her, looked into her, hopeful, searched for something she couldn't give. She knew he wanted her to find the words, drag the memory up from the dark depths. It wasn't there. No matter how badly she wanted it, how hard she tried, it wouldn't come. The disappointment surfaced when he came up empty, again, always. His words scraped at her heart, hollowing it out with defeat, sharp and cold.

"You realized you didn't care that he got away. You just wanted me."

And now that moment was gone. That moment that must have meant everything - the beginning of them. Her vision blurred with the rush of so much happiness being ripped away. This made it real — knowing for the first time exactly what she had lost.

"I'm sorry, Castle. I'm so sorry."

One finger came to cover her lips.

"Shhh. Kate, don't. This isn't your fault. None of this is your fault."

Releasing her lips, he palmed her cheek instead, mirroring her pose.

The inches separating them came alive; the urge to close them, to seal the gap, crackled and danced, electricity jolting from somewhere deep inside her, drawing him in.

His lips inched closer, just a breath away, tingling with the nearness, with the ghosts of memory, the tension building until she couldn't stand it any longer.

"It's not your fault, either."

Their eyes stayed open when her mouth made that first hesitant contact, barely a brush, so light it made her whole body feel weightless.

Something in him snapped, and she was in his arms, tongue venturing out, finding his, challenging, meeting the sum of everything he had been suppressing for days. The kiss was soft, strong, so thorough, equal parts temerity and timidness.

A moan escaped his throat when she slid her hand into his hair, gripped, tilted his head to change his angle, draw him deeper, set off a fresh wave of gooseflesh, a rush of blood to places she could almost remember his touch.

One of his questing hands found its way down her arm, and she knew the moment his fingers ran into her cast. His whole body stiffened, stilled, sequestered all the intensity back inside the shell he must have constructed since the wreck. His tongue was slow to withdraw, reluctant to leave the heat of her mouth behind, so she chased it, hummed her own disapproval.

But he was persistent in replacing the distance, gently parting them completely despite her protest.

Resting his forehead against hers, he framed her face with his hands, as if attempting to contain her, keep himself from falling back in.

"Kate, we should…"

"Don't say 'stop.' Don't you dare say 'stop'."

Because every millisecond of that kiss was burned into her memory now - the burn of its absence making her crave _more_, crave _everything._

If he was a drug, she was already hooked. Probably had been all along.

"No, no. Can't stop. Not gonna stop. Not ever again."

His mouth came in for one more swipe - dirty, harsh, needful. Then it broke away again, this time nuzzling up close to her ear, pouring hot breath over all those lovely nerves when he spoke again, voice trembling with restraint.

"But we have to slow down."

She nodded into his neck, tried to steady the dizzying spiral of lust and love. It _was_ love. The butterflies filling her stomach, fireworks behind her eyes, wings sprouting, shrugging off the fist around her heart, they gave it away.

"There's more that I need to tell you."

What could anything else matter compared to this? It had been just a taste, so brief, but so consuming. Every place they were still in contact seemed to produce its own light, radiate its own energy.

Hovering so close she could almost feel the nip of his teeth along the curve of her ear, his words contradicted the pull of his body.

"Come sit with me."

At that moment, she could have flown if he'd asked her.

Stepping back should have been easy, but some magnetic force kept her close. Finding her hand again, entwining their fingers, he tugged her around, led her to the couch, sat in one corner.

There was no choice but to settle herself in his lap, her shaky thighs draped over his, shoulder tucked under his arm, forehead resting against his temple.

Her left arm settled awkwardly across her legs, the lines and edges of the cast forcing her to squirm, readjust.

"Is it hurting you? You haven't had anything for it in hours."

This man. He couldn't help being perfect. No matter how much she had hurt him, he was still here, offering everything, asking nothing of her except the chance to love her.

"No. No, it's fine. Just doesn't like to fit… anywhere."

Fidgeting more, she angled it across her knees, realized it wouldn't balance, needed more leeway - another broken part of her requiring _accommodation_.

Frustrated, she let out a muffled growl, hauled herself up off his lap, paced to the other end of the couch, sat compact and contained in the corner of the "L." When she made the effort to relax her shoulders, let the purse in her lips smooth, he followed her over, climbed behind her, prodding and shuffling limbs until he sat behind her, tugged her back into his chest with an arm around her middle bracketing her hips with the "V" of his legs. It put her arm in line with the cushion on the back of the couch, and he directed her to prop it there, kept the tension in his forearm until she let herself go, allowed her twitching muscles to relax back into him.

They were a perfect fit.

Even her head fell back into the curve of his shoulder, lining up his chin with the apple of her cheek.

They had done this before.

"Better?"

That one word - two perfect, warm, slippery syllables, undid her.

Turning her head to bury her nose against his neck, she inhaled and nodded, let her lungs fill with him, let the nearness and the comfort of him soak into her bones.

Kate Beckett was strong; she knew that all too well after decades of testing herself, pushing harder, picking at every weakness until it bled. She could stand alone, and she could survive. But being with this man made her stronger, made her believe she could actually thrive.

His palms were resting at her waist, the heat of them soaking through the thin cotton of her shirt — his shirt. She had exhausted her supply of button-downs with sleeves loose enough to roll up over the damn cast, and he'd wordlessly handed her one of his when she had emerged from the bathroom that morning. Now his fingers dug in, flexed against her flesh, fired off a fresh round of shivers.

"We made love all night."

Her breath caught as the words sank in — he was back into the story – _their_ story - again.

"And then we found Smith, nearly dead, didn't get finished off until a few days later in the hospital. But we tracked down the file, and Maddox, your shooter. Well, he tracked us down, actually. And when he went for the file, a bomb Smith had booby-trapped got the better of them both. We fished enough information out of the confetti left over to identify the Dragon, though."

Her heart jumped in her chest as she sat forward, back straightening at the revelation. They won. They had finally won.

"We know? Castle, who?"

Her fingers found the ring tucked between her breasts, pulled it free, brushed over the dime-sized circle marking her skin there. Justice teased, just out of reach.

Arms tightened around her waist, tried to force her back to her former pliant pose. When she turned her head to find his eyes, showed him that she needed to hear this without the cushion of his body to couch the blow, he straightened with her.

"Senator William Bracken."

She had a name. Her swiss-cheesed memory could even conjure up a face to go with the nebulous, menacing evil that had lain dormant in her mind for all this time. But she could also read the inflection in those few syllables. They hadn't won after all.

"Why didn't we take him down?"

Chest deflating behind her, he readjusted his hold, rested his temple above her ear.

"It got… complicated. You bluffed with the information from the file. Told him you had everything, wanted Smith's deal — peace and protection for us, for everyone you loved, in exchange for keeping that information to yourself."

The adrenaline turned sour in her bloodstream, curling her stomach into a complicated knot of guilt and dread.

"I made a deal."

How? How could she get so far only to back down at the crucial moment? How could she let her mother down this way? There wasn't a shred of logic in any of this.

"You did. You told me later that you realized your mother would have wanted you to live your life, not throw it away in some pointless fight for revenge. You said she would have wanted you to find a way to be happy, and once you did, grab onto it and not let go. You chose this. You chose us over that fight."

It didn't fit. It was a beautiful story, one she wished she could live out. But it wasn't her. The spiral of fear and hatred still burned too hot in her veins for her to walk away.

"And then, about a year ago, you saved his life."

"What?" There was no way - there was just _no way_. If Bracken appeared in front of her right now, she could hurt him without hesitation, maybe even end him once and for all.

"There was a threat to his life, you were in charge of the team, and you figured it out, did your job. If you hadn't, he probably would have been killed."

This version of her that he spoke of with such loving devotion was a stranger, someone she couldn't understand, much less become.

"Castle, that person? That woman who saved that bastard's life, she isn't me. I'm not her. And I don't see how I ever will be."

His next words were a silvery whisper, an icy chill sluicing against her ear.

"She's there, Kate. She's inside you somewhere, and we're going to find her."

"I'm not so sure."

Maybe she didn't want to find that Kate, the one who would let her mother's killer walk the streets, free and empowered, while her mother lay cold in the ground.

Castle's grip tightened, his fingers flexing, their tips digging into her sides, holding on tight enough to leave a mark. The stab of desperation in his words nearly stopped her heart.

"We have to. We have to because _she's_ the woman who's in love with me."

No matter how terrified she was, no matter how unsure of her life and her past and her place in any of it, there was one thing of which she was certain. And now she could see it was the single thing he doubted when he looked into her eyes, held her in his arms.

She might not be able to walk away from the fight for vengeance for her mother; she might not know how to back down from all that anger and pain and hate; but that didn't mean she would ever walk away from this, from him, from them. Turning to find his eyes, she dropped the mask, let everything show.

"You're wrong, Castle. The woman who loves you is right here."

Surprise registered first, metamorphosed into awe, and then he was everywhere at once, his lips persuading hers to open, fingers finding all the spots to make her skin flush, her body curl into his.

Dizzy.

Her head was spinning, her blood pounding, her breath coming fast and shallow, making her reckless. The speed and the force of the feelings bubbling up – maybe from memory, maybe just from her _heart_ - were overwhelming reason, discretion, caution.

Slipping off the couch, she disengaged her lips from the kiss, left him looking mussed and muddled, his eyes asking why.

Holding out her hand, she smiled shyly when he took it and stood, followed as she stepped back toward their bedroom, the question in his eyes replaced with startling... recognition.

Kate wanted _him_, wanted _them_. And it was time to grab whatever part of her past she could get.

**# * # * # * #**

…**To be continued shortly. Feel free to let me know how that makes you feel…**

**A/N: To my tumblr anons, my tough love crew on twitter, and every single person who took the time and effort to leave a review, I thank you with all my heart. You have no idea how happy all your words make me. I just hope the story, if not the speed of its posting, is living up to your expectations so far. Alex, my friend, my partner in crime, thank you for talking me through the angst, and the occasional sting of a mean anon. You deserve **_**all**_** the coffee, **_**and**_** the wine. Joy and Nic and Dia, thanks for cleavers, whips, and mobilizing armies, respectively. **

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	12. Chapter 12

**Rewound Chapter Twelve**

**This chapter is rated M for a reason. **

Kate was... she was... this was _today_. This was March 2014. This was _not_ May 2012. There was no thunderstorm. No dripping hair. No bruises covered by soaked, clinging clothes.

But she had the same damn smile.

Come-hither and awe all swirled together into I-love-you and this-is-happening, and the only coherent thought he could come up with was _yes._ No, scratch that. Two coherent thoughts: _yes, now. _

All day he'd seen flashes, heard inflection, tried so hard not to read into the way her body had canted _toward_ instead of _away._ But she had told him she _loved _him. She sat there on his couch and listened to his story of their lies, misunderstanding, and heartbreak, and in the end, she had said the words her old self hadn't been capable of saying back to him for _two years._

His Kate was coming back.

And at that moment, she was retracing those same steps from that night so long ago, leading him into their bedroom - _theirs_. So what if she still had some gaps in her memory? If anything would jog it, it would be this.

Her grip tightened as she turned to tug him through the bedroom door, steps measured, slow, hesitant. Tamping down on the wild fluttering in his belly, he forced his own feet to mimic hers, not to rush, not to crowd.

Their love life had its fair share of hot, steamy, hard-and-fast, up-against-the-wall, thank-God-for-the-sound-proofing nights, and boy, were every one of those _memorable_. Burned into his brain for all time, really. Especially that one villa in Bora Bora with the hammock and the shots and that teeny, tiny bikini... It would be an awful shame if she never remembered that one...

It did strike him as he surfaced from his little reverie that if he was wrong about how much she remembered, to her, this would be their first time - their first time without the benefit of a year of therapy, the endorphin rush of almost dying, and the level playing field provided by shared newness. The thought nearly made him pause, halt everything and keep talking.

But stepping into their room, all of his doubts, the rest of the world, fell away. The pin-drop silence, the muss of her hair where his hands had fingered through it, the filtered gray late-afternoon light of the bedroom - everything seemed so real, but yet so removed from the nightmare of the past few days. A black and white print shadowed through a negative, it was familiar and smooth and warm after so much harsh, brilliant, digital, hyper-reality.

The scene mirrored all the most powerful moments his brain could conjure, those that spoke to the level of trust and love they had grown to expect - to rely on - in each other's lives, in each other's arms. The images flickered through his mind like a silent film, splashed across the walls of this room - the quiet, peaceful tangles of limbs, dark and soft and lovely, in this bed. With her sighs and catches of breath as soundtrack, the curves and planes of her body his only landscape, he had gained her confidence; chipped away at her need for control; gave, and took, gave some more; learned every tell; taught her his.

Stopping shy of the edge of the bed, she turned, her cast an awkward reminder of all the differences between that past and this present. But her other hand came to his chest, the warmth of her palm soaking through to his ribs, and he pressed his own against it, held it tighter to him, willed her to feel the pounding of his heart underneath.

The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that this was the answer. There was no way her synapses could stay still in the face of this intimacy. His Kate was teetering on the edge, about to tip into consciousness. This act, the same one that had cemented them together two years before, the one that had created the life now growing inside her, would bring whatever was still missing flooding back to her.

His Kate would come back to him.

Taking her face in his hands, he leaned in, brushed his lips over her eyelids, forehead, the tip of her nose, the swell of each cheek, the curve of her chin. Her breath tickled light across his lips, holding, waiting. He felt the change in her the moment she gave in, her body a tightly wound spring finally releasing. And then her mouth was on his, tongue asserting itself between his lips, fingers clutching tight in the soft cotton of his t-shirt, pulling him in.

But before he could wrap himself around her, sweep her up into bed, she was changing tactics, tugging fabric one-handed until he had to help her get the shirt over his head, his jeans unfastened and shimmied down. This was speed, and recklessness, and lust, and when he reached for the buttons of her shirt, he was stopped short by her hand, palming him through his boxers.

Nimble fingers encircled his length, already straining against the silk, slid gently down and up again, almost... assessing. When she slipped beneath his waistband, skin meeting skin for that first, glorious spark of contact, he couldn't help the jerk of his body into her touch. That connection banished all his insecurity along with his restraint.

Finding his focus again, he made fast work of her buttons, slid the shirt gingerly over her cast, and had to stop again because her thumb had begun to paint lazy circles over his flesh, skirting around, and back again, just exactly the way that drove him to distraction. He felt the last of his blood rush south, skin stretching and tightening as his girth filled her hand, and a groan, deep, unfettered, broke the silence of the room.

Everything sped up, the rest of their clothes peeled off in a blur, shed as barriers to that urgent desire for every curving surface to _merge_. They clung to each other, hands never still, mouths never idle, each trying to climb inside the other's skin. Her lips had attached themselves to his shoulder, teeth and tongue getting involved until he knew he would have a mark. The subtle violence, the willing abandon of that act shot an arc of need, possessive and fierce, straight to his core. He wanted that reminder, wanted her autograph on his skin, a record of this night, clear and unmistakable.

Vertical was not going to be an option much longer - what he wanted to do to her required focusing all his energy on the horizontal. Shuffling them back to the bed, he broke from her embrace to pull down covers, shuffle pillows. Even at their breakneck pace, he knew she would need a place for her arm. He couldn't live with the thought that something they did might hurt her.

Staying pressed against him as he arranged the bed, she hovered, impatient at his side, nibbling at his biceps, tracing the dip of his spine and the flare of his hip with the pad of her unoccupied thumb, until he finally gave up on the pillows and wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her onto the bed in that way that always made her squeak and yell at him for being a caveman, but which he knew she secretly loved.

"Castle!"

And there was the squeak. Thank God some things never changed.

But he set her down gently, instead of his usual haphazard toss, climbed in with her, tucked them under the covers with her arm well-propped. Even as he fussed over the injury, he watched her, cataloguing her sighs, the shudder on an unsteady exhale, the flutter of lashes as her gaze washed over him in return, desire kindling a rush of blood to her skin. Holding his weight on his hands, he trailed a line of wet kisses over her shoulder, down the bandaged arm, right to the edge of her cast, then moved lower, kissed every knuckle as they peeked out below.

"You have to sign it for me before it comes off."

Her voice was low, a whiskey rasp, warm and mellow, and it melted his heart. With everything else, it hadn't even occurred to him, but of course. He would cover it in love poems if she would let him.

"Want me to do it now?"

He shot her his most devilish grin as he sank into the mattress on her good side, dragged his fingernails feather-light across the flat expanse of her belly. Feeling her abs ripple in response, he caught his pinkie in her belly button, dipped and circled and teased as she smiled down at him, eyes glazing slightly.

"Don't you dare."

Using the tip of his index finger, he wrote on her skin, instead, one word at a time.

_BEAUTIFUL_

_STRONG_

_BRILLIANT_

_REMARKABLE_

_MINE_

_ALWAYS _

They had been too quick for her to catch them, so he thought, but when he had finished the swirl of the last "s" and met her eyes again, he found them suspiciously shiny.

"Always."

His eyes closed as the syllables washed over him, sank into his bones, sent a shiver down his spine. Yes. This was his Kate.

His smile met hers in a desperate, messy kiss, each pushing for an advantage, tongues battling for dominance, lips nearly an afterthought.

Arousal surged through his veins at the string of moans rising from her throat, swallowed by his kiss. When she threaded her fingers into his hair and guided him over her, he tried to slow down, wanting to take his time with this.

But Kate had other ideas.

Never one to argue when his beautiful, naked muse dragged him bodily against her, he complied, settling himself between her parted legs and holding his weight on his elbows. His hands wedged under her, fingers splaying to span her ribs just beneath her shoulder blades, holding her tight, still half afraid she might disappear at any moment, this whole scene a figment of his imagination.

Insistent hips tipped upward into his, and how was he supposed to restrain himself when that little, impatient humming noise that meant really naughty things were about to happen vibrated straight through her mouth and into his? That noise was the Beckett bedroom equivalent of table-flipping in interrogation - one step before the suspect got shoved into the one-way glass.

Getting his wits about him, at least as many as he could gather considering the complete lack of blood flow to his brain, he managed to withdraw his lips, prompting a rise in pitch of that lovely noise. But there was a good reason - her tongue was too distracting when he needed to concentrate on other body parts, and he had to see her face, watch her eyes, gauge her reactions.

Angling himself against her, he slid his length along her folds. Jesus, she was soaking wet. It took all his resolve not to plunge deep and fast, slake the thirst that had been building, flood the desert of want he'd been lost in for days.

But as he often did, he took the opportunity to tease her just a bit longer, draw out the knife's edge of need until neither could stand it. Dragging himself along her clit, letting gravity do all the work, he drew a whimper from her, and then a single, stuttering, breathless word.

"Please."

Those eyes, pupils wide, dark and deep, fixed on his lips where they lingered, inches from hers, close enough to feel that syllable. Dipping in line with her gaze, he aligned himself with her, saw the flare of green as he nudged her entrance, and then he pressed, tender, firm, insistent, until she gave way. That moment, that first tight, wet, clench of her around him, and then the sensation of her body parting, spreading, relaxing to let him in - nirvana. Nothing in the world felt so much like coming home.

Pleasure played out over her features: the part of her lips, the flare of her nose as her breath caught and held, the flicker of lashes down, down, down, and then fighting to open wider than before, to take in everything his face could convey just as she took in all his body offered.

Filling her slowly, keeping all his instincts in check, he felt the tension build in his back, his hips, his abs, every muscle crying out to go faster, harder. But he curbed it all in favor of her. When their hips met, he adjusted his weight, slid his hands down beneath her knees, lifted them up toward her body just the way she loved, so he could give her that last inch.

Her voice cried out his name, harsh and strangled, as he met resistance. Unsure if it was in pain or pleasure, fear jolted through him at the thought that maybe with the pregnancy, he might have hurt her.

"Did I - "

The savage kiss that muffled his question left little doubt as to which it had been. When she finally broke away to breathe, she eased his mind further with her words.

"Just surprised me, that's all."

Strange, since that move had been one she'd -

Her hips rose to meet his, feet planting on the bed again to give her leverage so she could grind up into him with a wicked little twist that stole every thought from his head. Her movements were a little desperate, erratic, out of sync compared with what he liked to think of as their usual effortless rhythm.

Struggling to set an even pace, he gripped her hips with his hands, felt her stiffen when he tried to shift them into better contact. Instead of matching his movements, her legs gripped his hips, and before he knew what was happening, she had him pinned under her, his shoulders now propped on part of her pile of pillows.

His eyes widened in awe. How the hell had she done that one-handed?

Nothing about Kate Beckett getting the best of him in bed should surprise him anymore, but seriously? She had a non-functional limb. Then again, he wasn't going to question the methods of the goddess currently lowering herself into place on his lap. But he did pull a pillow over where her arm could rest.

Eyeing the fluffy puff he had wedged at his hip, she gingerly laid her cast on it before planting her other hand flat against his chest and sinking to take him in one smooth, slick slide that had his eyes rolling back into his head and her name falling from his lips. The sheet pooled at the flare of her hips, leaving her completely exposed. Of all the ways he loved to watch her, this one was his very favorite: Kate, bare and flushed, arousal shimmering off her skin in waves, the whole of her formidable powers of concentration brought to bear on this pursuit of mutual satisfaction.

Letting her set the speed, he concentrated on the curve of her breast as it rose and fell just in his line of sight. He curled up toward her, spanned her tiny waist with his hands, and took one rosy nipple between his lips, used teeth and tongue on her until her timing faltered, and then nosed across to the other. As her hips gyrated, pistoning ever faster and more haphazardly, his mouth followed that gorgeous swell of flesh, tormented it until her voice quaked on a sob and she arched away, severing the connection.

Unfaltering, she leaned forward, hair wildly streaming around her face, forearm shoving him down to the mattress, then braced her good hand over his head on the padded leather headboard and stretched her legs out and around his.

Fuck.

An evil smile quirked at her lips, and he leaned up to greet it with a nip of teeth to the irresistible ambit. Two could play at this game.

Driving up inside her, he reached around her hips, filled his hands with the curve of each cheek, and yanked her down hard against him.

"Fu-Castle!"

He withdrew and then did it again; answering with a remarkably steady, if slightly winded, reply.

"Hmm?"

There wasn't even time to be smug, because she was undulating into him, counter thrusting with a hot, dirty little circle of her hips that stole his breath, and then she threw her head back in a shout.

"God... Yes. Again."

He wasn't about to stop now, not with her whole frame beginning to shake and stiffen, telling him just how close she was better than any words could. And he wasn't far behind.

Her biceps flexed near his temple, drawing his eyes to the bunching, straining muscle as she used it to force herself down harder onto him.

Dead. He was a dead man. She was going to kill him, and he was going to like it.

Everything moved faster; his hips snapping up, hers crushing down, every advance punctuated by the slap of skin meeting naked skin and a staccato grunt from him followed by an answering high-pitched whine from her. Sweat-slicked chests pressed together tightly, that dewy union replacing their kisses, which were long forgotten in favor of supplying the oxygen necessary to maintain this sprint to their cataclysmic finish.

Dipping into his last reserves of strength and restraint, he matched her thrust for thrust, and just as he thought he couldn't last a moment longer, she fluttered around him, let out a sob, and then her muscles squeezed down tight, pulsing and clenching and pulling him into the throes of it with her. The force of his climax shocked him, froze his hips, buried to the hilt inside her, jerking and spilling and holding her tight against him as she rode out her own orgasm.

At the precipice, he tried to find her eyes, to let the world fade to black except for those bursts of green and gold. Watching each other at that moment always anchored them together, reaffirmed that no matter how rough or dark or taboo the act, in the end it was all for this, the connection of bodies toward this communion of souls.

But her lids were shut tight.

Why wouldn't she look at him? Doubt crept in. But wow, they had been wild at the end, surely she was just slow to recover.

Pressing his lips to her ear, he whispered his love there, knowing she would return it. When she didn't, he turned to see her, read her.

But her lips were drawn firmly between her teeth.

Something cracked open inside chest; uncertainty wedged its way deeper, splitting off shards of fear and confusion. She was just overcome - they had gotten carried away, and now she was paying the price with her wrist. It must be the pain shuttering off her emotions.

But as his heart rate began to slow, it gave a stuttering beat.

Still, he shifted his arms to encircle her, draw her into his chest, let her come down tucked safely to his body, until they were steady enough to go for her meds, but instead of melding into that embrace, she pulled her knees under her and sat, straddling his hips for only a moment to catch her balance, eyes firmly on the mattress, before climbing out of bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

Too stunned to question her, he lay staring dumbly after the outline of her creamy skin silhouetted against the sudden flare of light from the fluorescents. That glowing after-image didn't fade even after she noiselessly shut the door, or when his lids shut out the room entirely. That perfect bliss which had filled him just moments before, now lay crumpled and broken inside him, gave way to a sick, heavy dread.

This was wrong.

Despite his best efforts to tell himself it could all be hormones, or her injury, none of that could explain the emptiness hollowing out his chest. There was no other answer that made any sense. Ice seized, stoic and still, around his heart, crystallized in his veins as the realization filtered through.

This was not his Kate.

**# * # * # * #**

The light from the fire cast flickering shadows across the neat stacks of files, soldiers keeping rank across his heavy wooden desk. Absently trailing his knuckles along the polished cherry, his eyes fell back to the two open manila jackets he had been avoiding for the better part of an hour.

The last swallow of whiskey in the leaded crystal tumbler swirled high with a practiced flick of his wrist. Bringing the cool vessel to his lips, he let the burn of the alcohol coat his mouth, numb it, set it to tingling.

There was no excuse anymore. Any action he took had to be taken soon, or all of this - the planning, the resources, the risk - would have been for naught.

His information was good, his source reliable and close. At least that was something. After the surprises of the past week - her survival, the pregnancy, and miraculously, her memory loss - he couldn't afford further... uncertainty.

Life was uncertain. Politics even more so. This plan was about minimizing that uncertainty.

No presidential campaign could withstand even one whisper of this chapter of his life.

Everyone else was dead. She was _supposed_ to be dead. And yet, here she was, looking so much like the woman for whom this crusade began.

The slightly blurry photo showed a couple walking together, long strides perfectly in step. With her head turned in profile, he could just make out the faint outline of the bruise, the mark of that miraculous erasure of his misdeeds.

Now if only those memories could stay buried, then perhaps he wouldn't be forced to bury her along with the baby she carried, just another unfortunate casualty of her unholy war.

But he wasn't a stupid man. He knew it could all come back in a flash. And even if it never did, she had shared her pathetic little quest for justice with the writer. Their meeting just over a year ago had cemented that theory.

No, it was time to act, and act decisively. He who hesitates is lost. Or more aptly, _loses_.

Setting his glass down on the blotter with a flourish, he turned to collect the decanter perched behind him and poured a generous two fingers, then stood and crossed to the window overlooking the blinking Midtown skyline.

Raising his drink, with a small, self-satisfied grin, he drank a toast.

"To the end."

**# * # * # * #**

**To all of you who waited so patiently for this chapter, thank you for your words of encouragement. To the readers who left me reviews, followed, or favorited, thank you. I've never had a chapter hit 100 reviews until the last one. To Alex, my beta, thank you for chasing me unfailingly back to this story, and for pointing it in the right direction when it sometimes veers off target.**

**This story has been fortunate enough to be nominated for the 2013 Castle Fan Awards in the M-rated (10,000 words) category. If you think it worthy of recognition, vote for it, and many other great stories, by signing up for an account on the contest website here:**

**the12th dot proboards dot com backslash board backslash 32 backslash 12th-fan-awards**

**Thank you again for your support.**

**-Kate**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	13. Chapter 13

**Rewound Chapter Thirteen**

_Damn it_.

She had made it through the door and to the sink, barely getting the faucet running in time to mask the sound of her hitching breaths.

Now she was bent over the counter, forehead flat to the cold, glassy granite, arms flung over her head, cast canted awry, staring straight down at the edge where the bath rug gave way to the heated marble tile. It took everything in her to clamp down on the sobs, keep them silent, shaking gasps of breath in lieu of the violent noise her body seemed to want out.

Moisture collected over her lenses, distorting her view, curving the seams of tile and grout until the tears fell, unhindered, flattening to shining discs that collected, merged into tiny pools on the glossy stone. Her toes curled into the soft, thick weave of yarn beneath her feet, holding on for dear life, holding off the inevitable self-reproach. But of course, it came anyway.

What had she done?

Who had she been kidding?

Nothing had come back.

The memories were not there.

All she had was that one gorgeous, mist-shrouded dream of what they had been, what she had been convinced they would be again, taunting her, showing her exactly how she could never measure up to that other version of herself.

Everything had seemed so close, her past and her future so _obtainable,_ just an hour ago. And the answer had been so obvious. Make that connection with him again, and everything else would fall into place. From the history, he made it sound like their being together had been some sort of panacea, unifying them against everything that was wrong with the world, with her life. But looking back now, of course it couldn't have been that simple.

She was broken. And from his description of her and her life over the past three years, she was realizing that even the Kate Beckett Castle knew and loved on that sparkling, blue and green, blood-soaked day was less crippled than the one he had had sex with tonight.

The sex had been... God, it had been phenomenal. She had never felt anything like that uninhibited, heedless rush of love and lust and just... everything. She had seen stars when she came, almost couldn't sit up at all afterward.

But she'd forced herself to sit up, to look anywhere but where he could read her. She couldn't process it, couldn't reconcile all that emotion with the reality of him, of what they had just shared, of her utter failure to find what she'd been looking for, staring her down. She had known immediately after that that she had to get away, had to hide the breakdown that started the moment she had floated back into her body.

She was not the woman Castle was making love to.

And she hadn't been able to give him what he needed – no – _deserved_. He had offered his whole heart; hers was in pieces scattered so wide she was convinced even he couldn't unite them.

God, she wanted to let him in, wanted to trust him with her body, the way she had in her dream. That dream was everything she had believed tonight would be. But unlike that night at the Hamptons, this night there were walls in the way, walls she didn't know how to scale.

And who was to say he would want to love this version of her; the one who hadn't let go of the bitterness, the pain, the regret over her past; the one who hadn't made a conscious decision to set it all aside and have a life, a happy, imperfect, wonderful life, with him?

As the minutes circled, stalking, unhurried, and then eventually passed by, the collection of tears on the tile ran together, and a familiar, numb clumsiness stretched her skin. Her eyes and lips were beginning to swell. Shutting her lids tight and fixing her lower lip between her teeth, she took a shaky breath in, staunched the saline flow, and lifted her face from the counter to scrub her eyes and cheeks with the crook of her elbow. When she finally rose, the picture in the mirror wasn't pretty. Splashing some of the still-running water over her face, she paused to cup her hand under the faucet for a drink, ended up swallowing down mouthfuls. The two extra-strength Tylenol would help ease the ache in her much-abused wrist. Too bad they wouldn't touch the deeper one in her chest.

Shutting off the tap, her hand gravitated to her stomach, the flat of her palm pressing just below her navel, brushing lightly back and forth.

_What a way to come into the world, little one. _

Blinking hard, she tried not to relive that gorgeous moment, the words he'd traced right there, not just speaking about the woman he loved, but also about their child.

He loved this baby so much already.

A flutter and clutch of protectiveness tugged at the space where her heart ought to be.

No matter how badly she had messed this up, no matter how much of a disappointment she was to the man _she_ loved, their baby would get the very best of her, and if they could find some way through, the best of _them_.

A tiny glimmer sparked beneath her ribs, new, and fragile, and unsure, but it buoyed her sinking spirits. She could get better for this baby. It's what her mother would have wanted most of all, for her to be happy, and to raise a happy child, just as she had done. The image of Johanna holding a tiny, blanketed bundle flashed behind her eyes. Memory or projection - she couldn't be sure.

Snapping back to the harsh reality of her red and blotching face, Kate let the feeling of her mother's presence linger, a ghost to haunt her, but also a comfort.

Time to press on.

She used the bathroom, snagged a shirt from the top of the hamper, threaded her bad arm through. Suddenly, she was enveloped in his scent - had to grip the towel bar to keep her knees from buckling as the fresh wave of despair washed over. She wouldn't start with the tears again. They did no good, gained no ground. No, she could feel sorry for herself, or she could go back out and face him, tell him she wasn't the woman he thought she was.

God, she didn't want to hurt him again. Imaging the pain of that was worse than any of her own disappointment. She'd lived with worse, but he didn't deserve it. He'd done everything right, with an open heart, and open mind. The walls were hers.

Flicking off the light, her hand rested on the cool metal of the door handle. One last breath in, and she cracked the door, peered out into the gathering darkness of the bedroom.

The sun had barely gone down, but buildings towering between his windows and the Hudson further shadowed the loft, making the early hour seem late enough for sleep. Exhaustion crept through her muscles, settled in her bones. All she wanted was oblivion, escape from the thoughts hurtling through her brain at top speed.

There was enough light left to make out the line of him beneath the covers, stretched out on his side and facing away. Still standing at the threshold, she counted four even breaths from him before she ventured out.

For a moment, she thought of the guest room. A dark, quiet solitude up the stairs and down the hall; sleeping there would keep her as far away from him as she could manage without actually running.

But that wasn't right. Even putting that short distance between them _would_ be running, and she wasn't going to renege on her word after everything else she had done.

So, she padded to her dresser, found underwear, a pair of shorts, pulled on that small armor at least.

Relief flooded her veins when she turned and found him still asleep, the silence creeping unnaturally across the room to her from his side of the bed. But her temporary reprieve from explanation, apology, was immediately colored by the sickly rouge of shame. Putting one foot in front of the other, she deliberately closed the space between herself and his bed. _Their_ bed.

_Tomorrow_. _Tomorrow_ they would get it all out in the open.

With his mattress, there was no need to worry about the dip of her weight waking him, so she slipped silently into the sheets amid her nest of pillows, arranged her limbs, and found the ceiling.

Castle radiated peace, lying there beside her still as stone. She envied his unconsciousness. On an unsteady inhale, she found the scent of them - cologne and sweat and sex all rumpled into the cotton and down of her nest. That subtle sense triggered all sorts of _consciousness_ in her.

All the startling, intimate detail of that hour played in an endless loop in her mind - the collection of freckles that kissed the peak of each shoulder, the perfect furrow diving between the muscles along his spine, the feel of him, heavy and thick in her hand, and then in her body.

Every part of her was still buzzing with it; the fatigue weighing down her arms, the tender tips of her nipples where they brushed against his shirt, the vague ache blooming between her legs were all physical reminders of how wanton she had allowed herself to be, how passionate and reckless. All of it conspired into an urge to turn, curl up behind him, bury her nose against his neck where his skin could soothe her. She imagined waking him up, brushing his hair back from where it had likely fallen over his forehead, and telling him how amazing it had been, and how she was sorry she still wasn't the woman who he was in love with...

Giving in just enough to turn her cheek to the pillow, she let the cool of the fabric soak into her skin, caught sight of his cheekbone, bathed in silvery light, stubble barely roughing its curve. And her gaze held there, impotent, bold, waiting... just waiting.

**# * # * # * #**

**A/N: Sometimes I write scenes just to make Beckett stop crying in my head. Constant sobbing can be distracting. This is also for all the readers who exclaimed, yelled, whined, or otherwise emoted about how I left the end of 12, or how SLOWLY I have been updating. I love every message.**

**Thank you, Alex, my coach for all matters of wrenching, be they of the "gut" or the "heart" variety. ;)**

**See my note in the previous chapter for the 12****th**** Fan Awards website. Vote for your favorites.**

**Twitter: Kate_Christie_**

**Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com**


	14. Chapter 14

**Rewound Chapter Fourteen**

The numbers lit, then dimmed, sluggishly plodding across the brass plate above the doors. The elevator sank in silence, with two pairs of eyes directed upward, tracking the too-slow progress of their descent, their return to a world neither occupant truly considered real.

Kate held a bag containing all the bits of her usual workday - badge, gun, keys, wallet, phone - now diluted by new necessities - pain medication, bandage materials, a pillow. It was unwieldy, this new arsenal, a mockery of the sleek, streamlined self she had honed by necessity and will.

They had been awakened before dawn by a shrill ring of Castle's cell, Esposito's voice calling them to the precinct. With no time for the complication of feeling, they had risen, spoken enough to get through the stilted shuffle of what was now her morning routine. Nakedness that, mere hours before, had spurred so many heated looks, inspired nimble, thorough fingers, had been studiously ignored with averted eyes and awkward hands.

Her only furtive attempt to see his face ended in a stalemate with the mist over the mirror.

Speed was a farce in this new life, yet there had been little time for words. A thumbnail sketch of his theory on her accident. A truck with faulty brakes. A mechanic nowhere to be found. Not much, but enough to tip her team's balance away from skepticism, enough to tempt this new no-nonsense Captain Gates into credulity. Castle didn't bother invoking the name of The Dragon.

Even now, on their way down to his car, the echoes of everything left unsaid filled the tiny space, threatened to suffocate them both.

"Here."

The flat of his palm, that conduit of heat, instrument of her undoing, now offered up the chalky ellipse in sterile supplication. Another now-essential thing, forgotten.

Managing to pluck the vitamin from his hand without the spark of unwanted contact, she fisted her own fingers around the pill, let her nails dig into her flesh to stop the words that would do no good.

The quiet "ping" marking their arrival was stark enough to made her start, clear her throat as a cover. The solemn sideways glance from him begged the question, why was she even trying to hide? Because in this world in which everything was shared between them, her thoughts were all she had to herself. And he wasn't allowed inside her head anymore. If last night had taught her anything, it was that she had walls for a reason, and it wasn't just for her protection.

Stepping out into the graying morning light of the lobby, she was forced to stop short, nearly plowed over a tall, blonde man waiting for their elevator.

Opening her mouth to apologize, her eyes froze on that familiar face. A ghost of remembered pain shot through her wrist, up her arm, made her unconsciously tuck the injured limb in against her body.

From her left came a startled confirmation.

"Chris?"

Her mind's eye quickly supplied scrubs, stethoscope, the beep of monitors, and for a moment she was back in that cloud of drugs and confusion and hurt. She felt her heart start to pound, her breath to quicken, her vision to haze out around the edges, and she had to take a step back, recoil from the low blow of that now all-too-clear memory.

The nurse's voice directed at her nearly took her feet out from under her.

"Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle. Forgive me, but you look so much better than the last time I saw you. How's the hand?"

Clamping down on the cold, seeking tendrils of panic, she forced her lips to move.

"Better. Much better, thank you. Why... what are you doing here?"

For all their careful avoidance of touching one another, she suddenly felt Castle's hand at her waist, the insistence of his arm as he pulled her into his side. His whole body was a rigid wall wrapping around her - subtle, fierce. She might be fighting off panic, but he was radiating fear.

And where were her own defenses when she needed them most? All the breaks in her shield were showing; if letting one man inside left her so defenseless, so open and exposed, both to him and to everyone, everything that could hurt her, then it wasn't worth it. She had to be able to protect herself.

"My girlfriend lives upstairs." Chris held up a brightly-colored paper box and smiled sheepishly. "She's got a thing for this bakery by my place - fresh croissants. Guess I'm a little smitten, bringing her breakfast on my day off."

For all the nurse's easy charm, Castle wasn't relaxing one bit. His glance over at the concierge desk would have been inconspicuous except to her hyper-vigilant senses, but his tone was tightly controlled when he spoke.

"We've got to be going."

Having him solid and warm against her had helped her gain a foothold on reality, drag herself up to the surface before she drowned. Why did she have to _need_ him so much?

"Sure. Me, too. I'm glad you're feeling better, Detective."

The brightness, the sincerity Chris' tone finally pushed through, calling her focus fully into the present. She managed a small smile with her response.

"Thank you."

As the man disappeared through the closing elevator doors, Castle led her straight to the front desk, painted on a believable veneer of calm, though his hold on her still hadn't let up.

"Clarence, could I ask a favor?"

The older man smiled and reached for the receiver on the landline at his desk.

"Certainly Mr. Castle. You need a cab?"

Her partner was truly his mother's son. Face a careful mask of friendly nonchalance, voice a perfect mix of entreaty and light-hearted conspiracy, he covered nearly every tell with practiced ease.

"No, thank you, we've got a car waiting. I just wanted to know which unit that gentleman has been visiting. I know you don't usually give out the sign-in information, but he took care of Kate in the hospital, and we were hoping to surprise him with a little thank-you gift."

The doorman pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes, then let a half-smile curve his lips.

"I suppose I can bend the rule just this once for a good cause." He flipped the book open and trailed a finger down the line of signatures. "3B."

"Thanks."

With that, they were out the door and into the back seat of the waiting town car, the sedan with his private security pulling out into traffic behind them. At least a foot of empty space gaped between them across the back seat. She fought the urge to close it.

"I need to stop."

Sharp eyes snapped over to pin her with a single syllable.

"Why?"

"There's no decaf at the precinct."

His answering grimace was resigned; Castle directed his next words to their driver.

"Can you stop at the next block? In front of Zen."

The man nodded back in his mirror.

"What do you want?"

Castle's words were tight, as though every cell disagreed, but he was indulging her despite it.

"I'll get it myself."

She didn't need to be coddled. She just needed two minutes to herself. His jaw clenched, released, lips and eyes pressing shut before he allowed words out again.

"I really don't think you should be out on the street right now if you don't have to be."

So not coddling, just paranoid. Even hearing this morning how convinced he was of his conspiracy theory, even knowing the boys were starting to suspect foul play, as well, until she had the evidence in front of her, she couldn't help the flash of skepticism, the indignation at his over-protective paternalism.

"Is that why we're in the town car? You think someone is after me here? Now?"

The set of his shoulders, rock hard and ramrod straight, showed he was mostly winning in his battle to control whatever emotion was swirling inside, but his voice rose, trembled slightly with the barest edge of adrenaline, a tiny crack in his composure.

"Frankly, I think it's a little too convenient that your nurse has a girlfriend, who I've never actually seen, living in _our_ building."

"You think Chris is part of it."

At least this explained his protectiveness in the lobby.

"I saw him on the street just outside the building at the end of last week. Two times in a few days. It's no coincidence."

He'd been suspicious from the start. Heat flared in her face at the thought of being intentionally kept in the dark yet again.

"Why didn't you say something _then_?"

"I had no proof. I didn't want to upset you when it was probably just me being paranoid."

"Well, Chris is back in your building, and I'm going in to get my own damn decaf. Stay here."

She knew the tone would brook no further argument, even in his current state of worry.

Conspiracy theories be damned; with her day of dependence looming large before her, Kate needed this one moment to herself, away from the tight-lipped sadness, the wary, lingering looks.

She was out of the car and into the shop without a backward glance, order placed and toe tapping when the bright voice chirped behind her.

"Well, aren't you the early bird this morning!"

Hannah, in all her rosy-cheeked glory, with her green Zen apron covering her baby bump, was almost bouncing in her hot pink running shoes.

"Back to work today."

A wrinkle passed across the other woman's animated brow.

"Already? Gosh, that's fast."

Beckett passed her credit card to the guy behind the counter.

"Better than sitting at home, going stir crazy."

It was certainly the truth, if not the whole truth.

"I suppose. Just don't you forget to take some time for yourself every now and again. Pregnancy's no picnic - you're fine one second and knock-down tired the next."

The barista handed over her credit card and two to-go cups tucked snugly in a paper tray, one with a large "D" written in marker on the sleeve. Fatigue was something Kate had pushed through her whole professional life. This would just be one more instance of mind over body, but without the caffeine.

Hannah's eyes twinkled mischievously down at the coffee and then back up again.

"Speaking of time for you, did you think about the yoga class? I'll be going tomorrow night, if you want to join me."

Despite the fact that she knew there was little chance she actually would have the time, Kate found herself genuinely wishing she could say 'yes.' Turning toward the door, she rationalized that if she didn't go this week, surely she could make the time when things were less... hectic.

"Remind me where it is again?"

That brought a beaming smile to the other woman's lips, and another bounce in her sneakers.

"Just down the block at YogaWorks. Starts at 6:30. Bring your mat."

Kate's heart felt marginally lighter as she stepped out the glass doors, spotting Castle leaning against the town car, a crinkle marring his forehead. On seeing her, he immediately brightened, opening the back door and taking the coffees so she could climb inside.

A brief dance of tray and cups and seat belts later, they were each sipping.

"You got me the real stuff."

It wasn't his bloodstream feeding directly into their baby's circulation. This was her cross to bear, not his. She knew the flash of resentment at being held hostage by this tiny, unremembered life was petty, overblown, but that didn't make it any less real. The bitterness flew out past her filter.

"Just because I have to suffer in caffeine-free hell for eight months doesn't mean you do, too."

The answering silence echoed cold, sad. Maybe that had been harsh, the reminder that no matter how involved he wanted to be, she was still the only one carrying this baby, and he was only as included as she would allow.

Fifteen minutes of crawling through lights, weaving, rushing into gaps only to pull up short at yet another gridlocked intersection, left her feeling empty. Guilt gnawed at her gut. She knew he needed some sort of reassurance, some sign that she was still in this with him. But nothing would come, maybe nothing was left of her to give.

Their arms didn't even brush on the elevator.

Stepping off into the emptiness of the early morning bullpen, Kate felt the curling prickle of deja-vu rise up her spine. Everything looked the same - desks that had seen better days, half-organized piles of paperwork cluttering their surfaces, chairs mostly tucked neatly underneath, whiteboard blank, waiting for the next body, the next story to unfold, her own name plate, elephants standing guard, waiting to welcome her back to the rhythm of this life, this place.

But certain things didn't flow, didn't fit, teased her brain with incongruity. A new keyboard - no, a whole new computer, less bulky, sleeker somehow. And the photo on the corner - whose baby was she holding, flashing that knowing, easy smile into the camera while Castle peered over her shoulder, making a silly face at the tiny, bundled thing?

"Jaime Ryan. That was at the Christening last month."

She tried not to flinch as he passed her, set her bag beneath her desk, his coffee on the corner. His voice was as rough as his expression. Until she saw him under the bluish light of the fluorescents, she hadn't noticed the shadows under his eyes, the lines at their corners cutting deep into his skin.

"It's good to see you, Detective."

The unfamiliar feminine voice drew her attention across the room in time to see its owner exit Montgomery's office. Tailored suit, crisp button-down, carefully arranged hair, perfect make-up, all at six in the morning. Something in the woman's measured stride, the clack of her high heels against the polished wood, the square of her shoulders, the directness of her gaze, rankled. When her focus shifted from Kate to her partner, her look softened somehow.

"Mr. Castle."

"Sir. We got a call from Esposito?"

Since when did Castle call anyone "sir?" But his tone wasn't flippant, not even a hint of sarcasm, and Gates didn't even flinch as she closed the final distance between them. Her answer came out a few decibels lower - odd, as they were the only occupants of the room.

"They'll both be here momentarily. Thank you for coming in so early. It can't be easy being here when you're not feeling... yourself."

"Thank you for your concern, Ma'am, but I'm fine."

The Captain's eyebrow twitched slightly, but before she could respond, Ryan and Esposito rounded the corner, each with a file in hand, and finished out the circle around Beckett's desk.

"Thanks for coming, Beckett. I know-"

"Would everyone please just stop thanking me? This is my job, unless something else has changed that I'm unaware of. Now let's get started."

Kate chose not to comment on the sequence of loaded glances passing among Castle and the rest of her team, but reached instead for the folder in Esposito's hands.

"What do you have?"

Ryan stepped up, began flipping pages one at a time as he ticked off the evidence in his file, voice matching Gates' volume.

"Not much: a disappearing truck with bad brakes and missing maintenance records; a mechanic who tells us those brakes had just been serviced, then two hours later quits his job and vanishes without a trace; every ATM, convenience store, and traffic camera within a block of your accident either out of service or conveniently blocked."

"What about witnesses? There must have been people at the scene?"

The folder in her hand contained the statements of first responders, spotty and short.

"This was a car accident, not a murder scene. What we have is right there, and it's not much. Mostly bystanders confirming that your light was green, that the truck continued into the intersection on the red, plowed into your cruiser almost full speed."

Flipping the page, she found a paragraph from a first-responder.

"What about this guy? Robert Matthews?"

Esposito leaned in, squinting at the typewritten page.

"Don't recognize that statement. I just printed this copy for you two, ten minutes ago - must have been updated since yesterday."

"Says he's an off-duty EMT, heard the crash from the opposite corner and rendered aid. Saw the truck driver was OK, found me unconscious, took over from another bystander holding pressure to stop the bleeding in my arm until EMS got there."

Castle chimed in over her shoulder, "But he didn't see anything else? Nothing suspicious?"

"It's a statement, Castle, not a Sherlock Holmes novel."

Castle shrank back, put at least a foot of distance between them, snatched up his coffee to cradle it in both hands. This was the precinct, they were behind, and she didn't have the patience for wounded looks and bruised feelings, so she continued.

"We need to bring him in. See what else he knows. This other person he mentions might be something. Doesn't look like there's any other bystander statement mentioning rendering aid."

Esposito interjected, his hesitation obvious to her well-tuned ears.

"There isn't, or wasn't as of last night. Just EMS."

Gates rested a fist on her hip, pulled herself up to her full height, silently calling everyone's attention before she spoke.

"I think we'd be safer not drawing unnecessary attention at this point, Detective. Ryan and Esposito can pay Mr. Matthews a visit, get the information without tipping our hand to whomever is pulling all these strings."

This woman was as bad as Castle. Kate was a professional, a grown woman who defended the lives of others on a daily basis; she could pick her own battles.

"Captain, if you think this wasn't an accident, you have to let us investigate it as a crime. How are we supposed to solve anything if we can't even put a witness in the box? Besides, I should be the one to talk to him."

She'd had just about enough of all these weighted looks passing around their little circle.

"What? What aren't you telling me?"

It was Castle that volunteered.

"Kate, if this is Bracken, he's got eyes everywhere. Inside the 12th, even. Every person involved in your mother's case is dead, except for you and me. We even hint that we're on to him, and everybody disappears. The last time you went looking ended with..."

"Me hanging off a roof."

His slow blink and press of lips were confirmation enough.

Gates cleared her throat, stepped out into that murky current.

"Our mechanic already disappeared. Beckett, the only people I trust are the ones standing in this circle. I'm not taking this higher up until we have something air-tight." She glared in Esposito's direction. "If I had been involved, I'm not sure I would have sent CSU to sweep the truck."

Esposito leaned back, chest puffing ever so slightly.

"I know the guys who went. I trust them with my life. And they got us the only other piece of evidence we have."

"What? What other evidence?"

No resources, no muscle behind the investigation, her own utter lack of knowledge about even the very basic information of the case - they were doomed before they had even started.

"A hair was found on the truck. Lanie's processing it herself. She's not letting it out of her sight until we get the DNA back."

Esposito's forced calm made her take a breath, consciously unclench the muscles already knotting at her neck and shoulders; it didn't sit well, being the last to know.

"But they found it caught in the undercarriage, so it could have come from anywhere - Manhattan to Jersey," Ryan cautioned.

So, in the end, that EMT was their best chance. And as much as she wanted to be the one asking the questions, she could admit she wasn't the one best prepared to do so. At least not yet.

"Fine." She looked to Ryan and Esposito. "Go find Matthews. I have plenty to catch up on here."

Both men were already halfway to the door when Ryan turned back to face them and tried to reassure.

"We'll call as soon as we have anything."

Gates still hadn't budged from her spot next to Castle, seemed to be reading over Kate's shoulder as she reviewed the new witness statement.

"Detective, no one would judge you if you didn't want to work this case. I don't think I could do it, in your shoes."

There was a thread of real affection running behind those words, and it took Kate by surprise. From her first impression, she imagined the Captain and she had a tense relationship, at best. And she certainly wouldn't be babied when it was her own life on the line.

"Captain, this is my case. I'm here until we take down the bastard behind all of it, once and for all. If you can't handle that, then you can fire me."

The older woman gripped Kate's elbow, put a little steel back into her tone.

"Take my word for it, Beckett. No one wants a repeat of the last time." A pregnant pause followed, during which Kate reined in her anger, channeled the energy to finding those answers. "Come get the rest of the files from my office. You should set up in interrogation, off the Monday morning radar."

An hour later, Kate had read and reread every word they had gathered, reviewed every piece of evidence, every note from Ryan and Esposito. It was damn little to build a case on. Even less, considering the evidence and witnesses had the nasty habit of disappearing.

Castle had pored over all of it, too, but when Kate started her third go-round with the witness statements, he had stood, let out a frustrated breath, stretched his back. Now he was pacing behind her, back and forth in front of the one-way glass.

"Sit down, you're distracting me."

His footfalls continued, a metronome punctuating her frustration.

"I just can't see it. There has to be something we're missing."

"From what we have here? I'd say we're missing a lot. A solid lead, for one."

The quiet "slap" of shoe leather finally ceased.

"Kate, we're going to figure this out. You have to believe that. We always do."

"All I know is, if this is Bracken, he's managed to fly under the radar of every law enforcement office in this city for decades. From everything you've told me, he's slipped through our fingers, too. And I have no reason to think this time is any different."

Though she couldn't hear him and kept her focus on the printed page in front of her, Kate swore she could _feel_ Castle closing in behind her chair. It was as though his mass was pulling energy in - fantastic, he was her own personal black hole.

But when his palms landed gently on her shoulders, fingers gripped at just exactly the right spot, with the perfect pressure to work the knots that had begun to pinch into aching points of tension, she let a measure of the fight flow out of her.

"This time _is_ different, because we're different. We're doing this together. A team. Partners."

Her blood boiled a little. Where did he get off having this unshakable faith in her? In them? It wasn't true. There were no guarantees. _They_ weren't a guarantee. There was nothing special about-

The trill of his cell phone cut off her spiraling thoughts. She rolled her immediately re-stiffening shoulders when his hands left them to dig for device. His answer came out clipped, impatient.

"Castle."

In an instant, the whole room seemed to go cold. In the furthest edge of her vision, she saw him straighten, turned in time to watch his eyes go wide and shoot toward her, his right hand clenching around the iPhone as his left balled tight, knuckles blanching white.

One by one, every hair stood on end, tracing a line of icy, firing nerves from the base of her skull to the tip of her tailbone. Searching her face, Castle's eyes fixed on hers, his lips unfroze to let loose a voice that stayed steady despite the trembling of his fisted hand.

"Yes, Senator, it _has_ been a long time."

# * # * # * #

A/N: Long wait. No excuse. Give me a shout if you're still here. You are all so wonderful and encouraging. We're building speed now.

ALEX, you never give up on my ability to write plot AND angst. It is your faith that keeps me going, when all I want to do is fangirl over "Still."

Twitter: Kate_Christie_

Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com


	15. Chapter 15

**Rewound Chapter Fifteen**

"Mr. Castle. It's been a long time since last we met. Too long, I think."

Castle's blood ran cold at the first syllable of Bracken's pompous greeting.

For one split second, he considered ducking out of the room, keeping Beckett out of the loop, protecting her from whatever this monster wanted now, but when his eyes met hers, they found recognition, startling in its clarity.

He hadn't said a word, but somehow she knew.

No more cover up, then. From now on, they would face The Dragon together.

He kept his tone careful, neutral.

"Yes, Senator, it _has_ been a long time."

Kate mouthed "speaker," but he waved her off, sure the man on the line would pick up on the change in sound quality, background noise.

Her curt nod suggested acceptance, but she stood silently and closed the distance between them; coming closer to him than she had all morning, she leaned in to share the phone.

"I was very sorry to hear about Detective Beckett's accident last week. I hope she's recovering quickly. But then, nothing keeps our Ms. Beckett down for long."

That single possessive pronoun raised his hackles, wrinkled his partner's brow. Suppressing it, he kept his answer calm, vague.

"You would be right about that."

"In fact, I have it on good authority that she is back at work already. Since I'm sure you've tagged along, let me give you this opportunity to excuse yourself, should she happen to be in earshot."

Her mouth went hard, eyes cold at hearing those words. Her only reply was a tiny shake of her head.

"I'm alone."

"Good. Good. Forgive my rudeness, but I wonder if you might confirm a... rumor."

Castle kept silent, raised a single eyebrow at Kate. He wanted to make the snake work for whatever information he was after.

"I've heard Beckett has lost her memory. Specifically, the memory of a certain chain of events that... introduced the two of us, formally."

His eyes were riveted on Kate's face, watching for any sign of what he should do, how much to reveal, but she gave him nothing but the stochastic clenching and unclenching of her jaw, the blanching border of tightly pressed lips.

"And where did you hear that?"

"How I came by the information is inconsequential. The question you should be asking is exactly what I will choose to do with it, assuming that it's true."

Bracken's delivery was utterly smooth, stoic. Kate's eyes narrowed, and she gave the slightest nod.

Careful - careful.

"Assuming that it is, what business is it of yours?"

"There's a certain... liability... to my future career inherent in having your fiancé walking the streets of New York with specific _opinions_ about past events. And that liability is compounded by pieces of purported evidence she has insisted are at her disposal."

The senator's tone was pragmatic, his vowels round, as if he were discussing some matter of Constitutional law over brandy and cigars. He continued without a pause.

"By effectively erasing the memory of said opinions, recent unfortunate events may have provided the two of us with a mutually beneficial opportunity, Mr. Castle."

Though he had managed to keep the quiver out of his voice up to this point, he couldn't quite disguise the disgust in his response.

"I can't see how any opportunity that would benefit you could possibly help me."

"It's simple, really. The two of you have something that I want. And now that your... somewhat... headstrong fiancé is out of the discussion, I think _you_ will be willing to provide it for me."

"What makes you think I know anything about whatever it is you want?"

Really, he was being no more obtuse than Bracken. The man had been carefully sidestepping any admission so far.

"Oh come now, Mr. Castle. You don't expect me to believe Beckett hasn't given you a copy of the files, that she hasn't shared the location of her own copies? She's a smart woman. She would consider sharing that information to be the most basic of insurance policies."

"Even if I did know, why do you think I would give them to you now?"

"Considering your future wife's _delicate condition_, I think you're in a position to be much more reasonable than either of you has been in the past."

Castle's eyes closed on a silent curse. This was not... _No one_ knew. No one. Opening his eyes again, he saw anger flashing over Kate's face, but behind that was a tinge of something she rarely let show, even in his presence - fear. A wave of protectiveness surged through him, overwhelmed every bit of common sense, every thread of restraint that had held him back.

He spoke on instinct, before he could think better of it.

"Where do I meet you?"

Kate's jaw dropped, breath drawn in so loudly that he was afraid Bracken might have heard. Castle took a step away, shielded the phone with a cupped hand. She stalked after him, eyes fierce, hand fisted at her side, looking for all the world as if she might eat him alive. He held the phone out again, and she pressed into his side, every muscle tensed to spring.

"East River Park, the ball field south of the bridge. Tomorrow morning."

The one small problem with Castle's non-plan suddenly struck him.

There were no files.

Damn.

Stall. He had to stall.

"I need more time to get all the copies. Wednesday."

That earned him a nod from his partner. Good.

"Fine. Six AM, Wednesday. It goes without saying that the deal is off if any of your friends from the 12th show up, and Mr. Castle, it would be in your _family's_ best interest if Detective Beckett knew nothing of this. _All_ of your family."

Bracken would have eyes everywhere. For all Castle knew, there were eyes on the precinct right now.

"Why should I believe that you wouldn't just kill her anyway? Once you've got the files, what's stopping you?"

Oh, that was not a happy expression from Kate. But he wanted to know what the man would say, even if it were a lie.

"It's useful, having a friend at the NYPD. Especially one who finally has something to lose."

And with that, the connection went dead.

# * # * # * #

Half an hour later, they stood with Gates in a back corner of the basement file room. It was late morning, and there were too many ears up in homicide to have this conversation there comfortably. Hell, even down here, Castle's skin was crawling, the fine hairs rising along the back of his neck.

"Mr. Castle, I thought you told me there were no files."

Gates had taken the news that he'd made contact with their number one suspect in stride.

"There aren't. I was bluffing."

Now he felt like he was on the receiving end of her worst round in interrogation.

"Well, you'd better hope this bluff doesn't get you killed."

Beckett had been unusually quiet since the phone call, only finding her voice now, a strangely grounded, very Beckett appraisal of the situation.

"For all we know, asking for the files is just a way to lure him out in the open, unprotected. That park is a clear shot from a high-rise right across FDR Drive."

He didn't doubt her knowledge of the area, or her thought process, but she wasn't giving their pursuer much credit.

"Bracken isn't stupid enough to shoot me. I'm too visible. Famous mystery writer shot? Tossed in the East River? That's newsworthy enough to call attention. And the last thing he wants is more attention."

Gates' eyebrow arched nearly to her hairline.

"So what exactly do you propose, Mr. Castle?"

At least she was giving him the chance to voice his thoughts - rare in the history of the Gates-run 12th.

"I'll go in, no cops, just me in a wire with a stack of dummy files, and I'll draw a confession out of him. All we need is for him to admit that he planned Beckett's accident - we don't even need her mother's case. That would be enough to charge him for attempted murder, right?"

Gates pinned him immediately with no more than a flick of her gaze, one index finger raised in his direction.

"He'll suspect fake files. And I'm not letting you go into this meeting without back-up."

His next words came out in a strained whisper.

"Bracken specifically said the deal was _off _if police were there. No offense, Sir, but I've seen these things go south more times than not. And if this goes wrong? We're not getting another chance."

The Captain blew out a loud breath, turning to eye one of the beat-up metal file cabinets just over Beckett's shoulder. Her voice was in its normal register when she spoke this time, her gaze landing first on him, and then on Kate.

"What if you take what's left of the real files? Just hand them over, explain what happened? From what he told you, all he wants is to know the evidence is out of play, and it is."

Kate had been quiet again. Too quiet. But that suggestion finally provoked a response.

"Do you really think he's going to be satisfied with that explanation? This is _Bracken_ we're talking about. He's killed a dozen people, from what you've said, in cold blood. Tried to do the same to me twice now."

Gates was unfazed, pushed right past Kate's objections.

"It's the truth, isn't it?"

Beckett leaned in, nostrils flaring as her ribs expanded, lips parting, shoulders rising.

Before Beckett could plow into her, Castle laid a hand on the bunching muscles of her forearm, attempted to diffuse.

"Since when do politicians respect the truth?"

His words did the job, though the detente seemed tenuous at best. Gates piped up in her most reasonable tone.

"Well, look, until one of us comes up with a better idea, you two get what's left of the real files together, and I'll see what I can do to assemble a fake version."

Gates started to back away toward the elevator, and they fell into step, flanking their boss. Kate kept her gaze on the floor as she spoke; he could feel her forcing down her anger, tucking it away for a better fight. By the time she spoke, all that remained was a tartness imbuing her syllables.

"Where are we with the witness?"

"Ryan checked in a few minutes ago. No luck at the EMT's house, so they were on their way to the station where he works."

Castle pushed the button to call the elevator as Beckett faced them, a wrinkle of concentration pulling her forehead into a frown.

"This falls apart if we don't have Matthews. Without him to tie Bracken to the crime scene, we're done. I don't care what Bracken says about the files, he's not going to confess. Even on the phone he was careful, didn't admit to anything."

"Do you think he knew you were listening?"

"He's too smart to give anything away. I assume he's considered you've told me, told us, everything by now. He knows I could remember at any moment. So whatever his endgame is, it doesn't rely on my staying in the dark."

They stepped into the empty car, and it hit him why she had been so angry when he had asked Bracken that last question.

"You think he's going to kill you anyway, don't you?"

Her eyes snapped to his for an instant, liquid amber dwarfing the constricted dot of each pupil.

"He'll threaten to; you heard him - 'your family's best interest'? He's going to use the safety of everyone we love against us if we let him."

Gates broke into their little back and forth with her own question.

"But what I don't understand is what's different now?"

Neither of them had told the team about their new... addition. Their eyes met over Gates' shoulder, and Kate took a breath before turning to the older woman.

"He knows we have something more to lose. I'm pregnant."

Those perfectly arched eyebrows elevated, but Gates covered her shock well.

"And somehow, Bracken found out, plans to use it as a weakness." The minute pause was punctuated by the tip of her head, the half-curve of a smile. "A mother's love? It's a strength, Kate. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise."

# * # * # * #

When the boys returned two hours later, they had two bags of take-out from Gates' favorite deli in hand, hoping the general knowledge of their Captain's love for corned beef on rye would be enough to explain her joining them for an update in the break room. The woman was certainly doing her part to make it look authentic.

"Detective Ryan, is that sauerkraut I smell? Tell me there's a kosher pickle in that bag and I will personally file the paperwork on your next close."

The Irishman gave her his best winning smile and handed over the small paper sack.

"There are two, in fact, Sir."

As Castle handed out the remaining sandwiches and dug into his own ham and Swiss, Esposito started in low.

"No dice on Matthews. Nobody at home, colleagues said this was his day off. But we asked around, very quietly, about the accident. One guy was on one of the buses at the scene. Said he saw Matthews holding pressure on her wrist, but he was in charge of checking over the driver of the truck. Didn't remember anyone else near Beckett's car."

Kate was struggling to unwrap her tuna on whole wheat one-handed, but before Castle could intervene, Ryan quietly reached over and undid the paper for her before pulling open her bag of pretzels, dumping them out next to the sandwich. Her only reaction was a grateful dip of her head, a tight pull at the corners of her lips, but Castle could tell the frustration was beginning to bubble just beneath the surface.

She had been typing one-handed all morning, repeating the background check on the driver, double-checking every number on his phone list, every deposit on his financials. Even she couldn't find a shred of dirt on the guy, though the clumsiness of her own fingers wasn't helping. But she wouldn't let Castle do it, directing him instead to have a first pass at what Gates had pulled on Matthews so far.

Ryan picked up the narrative after swallowing a giant bite of his turkey club.

"But he did remember seeing someone in scrubs taking off just as they pulled up. Figured it was probably an off-duty nurse or doctor from the hospital around the corner. Said it wouldn't have even caught his eye except he saw blood on the scrubs."

Esposito took over again, a spark of something like optimism lighting his features.

"EMT was too far away for him to catch a good look at the face, but get this - he said he thought he remembered spiky blonde hair."

Gates perked up at that, taking a break from her obvious enjoyment of her lunch to pose a question to her detectives.

"Still no word from Dr. Parish on DNA from our blonde?"

"Nope, but she said she should have something by later today. Scrubs guy has to be Bracken's henchman. Any luck and there'll be a match in the system."

Kate had gone quiet, her untouched sandwich forgotten on the table before her, her eyes unfocused out the window. She'd had that same vacant look just this morning, as they stepped out of the elevator in his building, when she had nearly run into...

"Chris!"

"Chris!"

They both spoke the nurse's name at the same time, drawing confused looks from the other three around the table.

"The nurse that took care of Beckett in the recovery room. He's been in my building twice in the past week, said his girlfriend lived there, but I've never seen her with him."

The explanations flowed out of them, both chasing each other's words without even a pause for air.

"Castle's been suspicious all this time, but he was afraid to say anything because he didn't have proof. This guy is blonde -"

They were both leaning in, their faces inching closer as one fed off the other's thoughts.

"Wears scrubs -"

"Works right around the corner -"

"Knew about your memory loss -"

Esposito dove into the fray as he started to rise from his seat, already aiming for the door.

"Let's go get him."

Ryan moved to follow, but Gates stopped them both with the lift of one flattened palm and a subdued tone.

"Not so fast, Detectives. You bring in Bracken's thug of the month, you think he'll be alive by tomorrow morning?" The glint in her eye dared anyone to contradict her. "We check on him from here, look into the girlfriend. In the meantime, we find Matthews, question him, show him a DMV photo, get confirmation _if_ Chris is our guy, watch him until we're sure Bracken can't see, and _then_ we get him."

The boys cleaned up the remnants of their hastily downed sandwiches, Ryan looking to Castle as he rounded the table toward the door.

"Do we have Chris' last name?"

"Call Presbyterian. He's a recovery room nurse. Worked last Tuesday night."

"On it."

The detective was headed for his desk, with Esposito right on his heels.

"I'm gonna make some more calls about Matthews. Guys at the firehouse said he has a kid he picks up from school on his days off. Worst case, we can catch up with him there in a few hours."

Castle turned to Gates, momentarily impressed that she had put away her sandwich _and_ one pickle almost as quickly as Ryan and Espo.

"We can find out the girlfriend's name from her apartment number - which I got from my doorman this morning."

The aura of "gloat" was not lost on his almost-boss, who graced him with an eye roll to rival one of Beckett's best. Castle stood and Kate moved to follow, but halfway out of her chair, her fingers gripped the edge of the table, eyes fluttering closed as she took in a tight breath through parted lips.

"Hey."

Castle had a hand on her back, the other cupped under her elbow before she even had a chance to sway. When she was settled firmly back in the chair, her eyes popped open looking for Gates, who had managed to slip out of the room and shut the door behind her.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, Castle. Stop hovering."

"Because if you're in pain-"

"I was dizzy for a second. Now I'm not. Let go of me, and let's go find Chris' girlfriend."

His heart clenched a little at the rebuff, but he relented, let her stand up again on her own.

This time she had to white-knuckle the back of her chair, skin clammy, drained of color. If he hadn't put an arm around her ribcage, she might have actually toppled.

"I think you should take five minutes to sit here and eat your sandwich, Kate."

She fumed up at him through her lashes.

"Fine."

Castle set her back in her seat and crossed to the fridge, sniffed the 2% in the carton wondering if it was the same one he'd brought in a week before but deemed it fresh enough, poured her a mug full. By the time he circled back to the chair beside her, the pink had mostly returned to her cheeks.

"You wouldn't let me fix you breakfast; you didn't even look at the granola bar I tried to make you eat two hours ago. All you've had today is that decaf latte from Zen, and I'll bet you ordered it skim."

Condensation began to gather on the ceramic, as her drink remained untouched.

"You don't have to lecture me, Castle. I can decide when I'm hungry and when I'm not. I'm not a child."

She stared hard at her pretzels, fingers twitching against her thigh. Kate might not like it, and she might hate him later, but damn it, taking care of herself was not negotiable anymore.

"No, but you _are_ carrying one. And I don't care if you aren't hungry, when you're pregnant, you have to eat, because even if you're only six weeks in, that baby is already pumping you full of hormones and changing your metabolism, and for the next seven and a half months, your body is not going to be the same."

The fingers in her lap dug into her quad hard enough to bruise, and she took in a sharp lungful of air.

He didn't realize she was crying until her first words came out in a hitching whisper.

"God damn it, Castle, don't you think I know that? Putting on my bra hurt this morning. I've lost count of how many times I've cried in the past week. I didn't feel like eating this morning because the thought of food made my stomach turn."

_What_? She hadn't mentioned anything about nausea or sore breasts. He would have had crackers, plain toast, that fizzy water she liked, a heating pad, wouldn't have been rough with her in bed - oh god. His brain flashed to their crazy sex the night before; had she gone to the bathroom _to cry_? She was the mother of his child, for heaven's sake, and she was six weeks pregnant, how could he have let _his_ hormones get so carried away?

His fingers flexed on the back of her chair; all he wanted to do was hold her and tell her she was going to be fine, everything would be fine. This time next year she would be back to her old self, and they would have a perfect, healthy baby and be a family and live happily ever after. But he had no right to assume any of that, every diaphanous thread of that future was fiction, woven by his writer's imagination and waiting to be severed by the all-too-real threat of her past.

Meanwhile, her hand was scraping over her face, fingers swiping roughly at her eyes, and he hadn't said anything. Why did his words only fail him when she needed them most? She filled the silence for him, words now more mad than melancholy.

"My wrist hurts, I'm too slow on the computer one-handed to do anything useful, and Gates wouldn't let me out of the precinct much less in with a suspect, _before_ she saw me almost pass out from low blood sugar. Castle, I couldn't even eat a sandwich without somebody's help."

This was Kate Beckett, his badass detective fiancé; she was fearless, powerful, independent, and she was crying over a tuna sandwich thirty feet from _her_ murder board.

Enough.

"Beckett, less than a week ago, you almost died. You broke your wrist, you had surgery to save your hand, and you got such a bad concussion that you can't remember three years of your life. Now we think all of it was orchestrated by the man who had your mother murdered." What had started as a rough whisper was now rising in pitch and volume to match his frustration. "To top it all off, you found out you're pregnant, and you don't even remember dating the father of your kid." He was building up steam, and he suddenly didn't care if the walls were thin and the blinds were open. "I think you should cut yourself a little slack. It's been a rough fucking week."

Silence hung heavily between them, thickened the already nebulous atmosphere, and he considered that perhaps he could have executed that with a little more… finesse.

She still wouldn't look at him, face hidden behind her hand. But then she let out a little strangled sound, a cross between a gasp and a squeak that set her shoulders shaking. When she finally drew her hand away from her face, there was a shaky smile where her grimace should have been. Was she - ? No - she couldn't be... but she was.

Kate Beckett was laughing.

And what started as a somewhat stifled chortle was rapidly escalating to a silent guffaw, reaching the point that she couldn't even get enough air in to vocalize. In spite of himself, Castle felt a bemused grin tugging at his own cheeks in response.

Reaching for her mug, she chugged down half its contents, calming her burst of giggles before she finally attempted to speak. The half-moons of her nails pressed tiny, pale divots into the skin of her forehead as she filled her lungs to speak.

"Kinda makes sandwich wrappers and pretzel bags seem less... earth-shattering, huh?"

She popped a pretzel in her mouth, crunched down on it a few times and swallowed, reached for another.

She made it through the sandwich, polished off the milk as he sat quietly beside her, trying not to stare at the turned up tip of her perfect nose, the play of her lips against her cup, the sharp point of her chin rising and falling as she chewed, the smooth line of her throat bobbing with each swallow.

After she crushed the paper into a tiny, tight ball and tossed it deftly into the trash can halfway across the room, that hand dropped to the table to cover his, fingers curling into the hollows between his knuckles, their nimble tips sneaking under his palm, anchoring her to him. Him to her? He couldn't be sure. Regardless, the conviction of those five slender digits intertwining released a weight from somewhere deep in his chest, let him take his first deep breath in hours, maybe days. Her eyes were steady, bright, focused on the link between them when she spoke again, words shot through with and echo of something familiar – conviction.

"It's going to be alright, Castle. We're going to be alright."

In spite of every piece of evidence to the contrary, in that moment, he believed her.

# * # * # * #

A/N: I may be slow, but there will be no four-month hiatus in my Castle universe. _Bam_, said the lady-writer. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me. The follows and favorites and reviews make my day.

Alex, when I win the lottery, I will finally be able to pay you all the back wages for being my editor. You interested in a full-time gig? Because I will also do my best to buy the rights to Castle, and we can take turns writing angsty, plot-filled episodes filled with gratuitous Beckett lingerie and FFAC (Full-Frontal-Amish-Castle). Kidding. Mostly.

twitter: Kate_Christie_

tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com


	16. Chapter 16

**Rewound Chapter Sixteen**

When the door to the loft finally opened, her heavy limbs barely carrying her across the threshold after Castle, the first and only thing on Kate's mind was getting out of her shoes. This morning, she had slipped into the lowest heels that would keep the hems of her dress pants from dragging the floor, so it made no sense that her back had been knotting up since lunch. This pair was less than half the height of her favorite four-inchers, and even those didn't usually set her back off unless she pulled a twelve-hour day; it wasn't even four in the afternoon.

Castle seemed to have disappeared into the bedroom, but the nearness of the couch was beckoning, with its fuzzy blanket and supple leather cushions. Working through the arches of each foot, letting her toes dig into the cushy pile of the living room rug, Kate rolled her ankles slowly, then stretched her back, prompting an unfamiliar string of pops, and finally sank down to sprawl lengthwise across the center of the giant sofa.

Now that she was horizontal, it was nearly too much effort to reach the throw, but the chill of the windy March day still clung to her skin, made her shiver. So she reached across for it, snagged the corner, draped the fleecy blanket over herself. Almost immediately, the warmth, the softness, the now-familiar smell of _home_ settled something in her chest, and her eyelids began to droop. The pull of those sluggish, lash-rimmed curtains of darkness was so strong, so pleasantly unfamiliar. She would close them for a moment, rest until Castle came back out. They needed to review the case; they should be hearing from the boys once they spoke to Matthews. And they should talk, clear the air about last night. She should apologize.

Gentle hands woke her as they squeezed across the balls of her feet, the rise of her instep, the tight band of her Achilles. Awareness slowly floated in, her brain taking stock: her feet were up, resting in Castle's lap as he pressed more firmly into the tired muscles; she was still tucked in under the blanket. Chancing one sliver of vision, she found him watching her, of course. He must have snuck into her little cocoon without waking her, because now he was sitting halfway down the couch, sharing the throw.

"Hey."

A smile dusted his lips at her sleep-roughened syllable of greeting, and he answered her with that soft, even timbre that resonated somewhere deep, dragging up comfort from an unremembered history.

"Hey. I hate to wake you, but it's about time for dinner. Anything sound good?"

That tone of voice belonged just behind her ear, carried on hot breath against her skin, a prelude to strong arms and persistent hands, pliant lips and slicking tongue. And she needed to snap out of whatever reverie his words had inspired, because at this rate she wasn't going to be hungry for food any time soon.

Change the subject.

"What time is it?"

The light was slanting deep across the room, already washing every surface in the reddish purple of twilight. She must have slept longer than she thought.

"Almost six."

A burst of adrenaline had her pushing up on her good elbow, hair falling askew across her eyes.

"Six? What happened with the boys? Did they find Matthews?"

His thumbs chose that moment to work into the very worst trigger point at the apex of each arch, the one she could never get to release on her own.

God damn it, that _hurt_.

Scrunching her eyes tight, her mouth opened in a silent "O" as she tried not to vocalize the curse words running through her head.

"Take a deep breath, relax into it, let the tension go."

Those thumbs were relentless, applying more pressure to the twin torture points until the sharp, zinging burn shot up her legs and into her spine. For one fleeting moment, she thought she might black out. And then, miraculously, she felt the muscles twitch, stutter, spasm, and finally, finally release.

Her elbow went out from under her and she sank back into the buttery leather, lungs emptying on a sigh that bordered on salacious.

"I… That… Wow…"

The man was good with his hands.

"The boys sent me a text right after they found Matthews. Said they would get back to us after they questioned him. Apparently they had to wait while he found someone to take care of his daughter."

Trying to wrap her mind around something other than the boneless bliss that was suffusing her brain, she strung together semi-coherent words. They had to get back to the case.

"Maybe you should… call them? See if they need us to—"

"Kate."

She opened her eyes, took in the sharp angle of his jaw as it clenched.

"You don't have to _be_ there. You don't have to be _in_ this every moment. Ryan and Esposito are good at what they do. Let them do it."

Everything he wasn't saying bled straight through those carefully chosen words. She had to give him credit for not bringing up their afternoon, though he would have been completely justified in doing so. But his words had their intended effect, sending her right back into the memory.

After Kate had run down every piece of information available on Chris, his supposed girlfriend, and Matthews, double checking the team's work when nothing popped, she had been antsy, about to ask permission to go with the boys, if only to stay in the car while they picked up the witness.

Her wrist had been aching, and pressure had begun to build behind her eyes. The subtle stroke of her fingers along her brow hadn't been subtle enough, though, since it had sent Castle digging for Tylenol and running to the break room to make her some herbal tea he had found deep in the back corner of a cabinet.

Gates had walked over to check in while Castle was away, leaning in for a quiet rundown of the unrevealing background checks and initial financials. Kate hadn't masked her disappointment, finishing with a frustrated exhale. The older woman, looking up from the pages of Matthews' bank transactions, must have seen something in the tightness around Kate's eyes, the practiced press of her lips.

"Kate, why don't you go home?"

It hadn't been an order. That was what had struck Kate in the moment, made her pause and consider, really consider the knowing resolve, the compassion that her instincts told her were not usually so readily on display on this woman's face.

"I will personally guarantee Matthews will tell us what he knows; we won't let him go until he does. We will not lose another link in this chain. We're going to get the bastard this time."

"But Ma'am—"

"Detective, when we're on duty, you can call me 'Gates,' you can call me 'Captain,' or you can call me 'Sir.' 'Ma'am' is for my mother-in-law."

The squint of her eye and the twist of her lips had told Kate there was a story lurking behind the words, one she would have to question Castle or the boys about later.

"Okay, _Sir_, with all due respect, there's no reason for me to go home; I'm fine. I want to be a part of this investigation. I need to be _doing_ something."

Gates' voice was low but carried no less force for its lack of volume.

"Detective, I'm not kicking you out. I'm telling you to take care of yourself, and take care of him," her head tilted toward the break room. "Let him take care of you. I expect you both back first thing tomorrow."

Castle had stepped up in time to catch those last words of dismissal, shared a weighty look with Gates as she had stepped past him back in the direction of her office. Ten minutes later, they had been in the back of the town car. Beckett was discovering there was no point in arguing with their boss once she had made up her mind. Kind of reminded Kate of herself in some ways—some really annoying, pig-headed ways.

Now, she was staring straight into that same stubborn, well-meaning concern, flowing off her partner from his place under her blanket on his couch, where his strong fingers were still working over the flesh of her heels, the dip and rise of each ankle. Those hands should require a permit; there was no way something that felt that good could be legal.

As she watched him, something started to sink in. It wasn't just strength, or concern, or dedication radiating from those hands, those eyes; it was love. All of those things and more were pouring out of this man with every movement, every look, every word - they had been for days. And somehow, without her even realizing what was happening, his words and actions had slowly been filling her up, gaping holes and seeping cracks alike, fitting into all the tiny, oddly-shaped, shadowy corners and letting in the light.

Sitting here with him in the hazing twilight, she felt something give, the click and turn of some cog she hadn't known was stuck. And with that shift, she let some of the heaviness around her heart fall away. Life wasn't simple. Life wasn't easy. Parts of hers had been about as far from those two adjectives as humanly possible. But some parts of her life could be simpler, easier, if she would just let them be.

And so, she let them be.

"What are we making?"

The wrinkle in his brow was really adorable, even if it did mean he had no clue to what she was referring…

"Dinner. What are we making for dinner?"

# * # * # * #

"Ooo. Castle, do we have olives?"

Turning from the cutting board at her little exclamation, he had to catch his breath at the sight of her. She was gorgeous, standing at the stove, cheeks glowing pink, lips curving up unselfconsciously, as she tasted the pasta sauce simmering on one burner before checking under the lid to see if the water was boiling for the ziti. Her hair was down, a jumble of messy curls falling around her shoulders, shot through with red and gold by the last glow of the sun.

She blew a stray curl out of her eyes as she cocked one hip and leaned against the counter facing him, her still-unanswered question prompting a quizzical look.

That same unruly auburn tendril fell across her cheek again, and she tapped the spoon on the edge of the saucepan before laying it aside and combing her fingers through, tucking the strand behind her ear and eyeing him warily.

"What are you smiling at?"

Kate Beckett was barefoot and pregnant, cooking dinner with him in their kitchen.

Yes, fine - he was a caveman. He recognized it and admitted it fully in his own head. But if he vocalized that thought, he would be risking bodily harm and jeopardizing any possibility of future children, so he swallowed and toned it down.

"You're beautiful. Sometimes it just makes me smile."

Flushing to the tips of her ears, she turned back to the now-boiling water, poured in the pasta, and gave it a stir.

Mentally clearing his throat, he attempted to remember the question that prompted all his mooning in the first place. Oh, yes, right.

"Olives. What kind?" He swiveled to the fridge, started pulling out glass jars from the top shelf in the door. "We've got Spanish with pimentos, Kalamata with pits, ooo, and those dry-cured ones with rosemary that you love."

"I don't know. I just suddenly want something salty."

Let the food cravings commence.

He pulled down a bowl, dumped in some of each and mixed them up, crossed behind her to set them beside the stove near her good hand.

Admittedly, he didn't _need_ to step quite so close. And it might not have been the best idea to inhale with his nose just inches from her hair. But then _she_ didn't have to reach for an olive while his hand was still attached to the bowl, and she absolutely did _not _need to brush her forearm against the tiny, sensitive strip of exposed flesh on the inside of his wrist.

But once he was there, with her scent filling his nose and the curve of her hips flaring at exactly the right height for his palms to grip and slide and find the perfect, porcelain skin he knew was hiding just beneath the hem of her shirt, he was caught in her gravity, unable to escape her body's inevitable pull.

As he stood mesmerized, before he could act on any of his impulses, he heard her drag in an unsteady inhale, watched her shoulders relax as the air left her lungs. And then she was taking the tiniest half step into him, her body canting back, closing the distance. There was nothing for it but to lean in, absorb the curve of her spine against the wall of his chest, take whatever weight she would give him, and _God_ it felt so good just to touch her.

This woman was not the same one he had proposed to. This Kate was darker, had fresher scars. But in the past week, she had clawed her way back from depths his Kate had never been forced to explore, muscled through triggers and scaled walls just as fearsome as any his Kate had faced, and all of it to stay with him, to get back to work, to solve her own case. She was fighting for a life she didn't even remember having, and damn it if she wasn't _winning_.

His hands found their way to her hips, fingers just lightly tripping up and down the seams of her dress pants, toying briefly with the finished edge of her cotton button-down.

Her fingers rose to her lips, popped in an olive, and as her teeth and tongue worked over it, separating the tender morsel from the pit, she let out a moan of pleasure.

"Told you you like the rosemary ones."

The pit found its way to the trash bowl of onion skins and tomato cores and herb stems, and she dove back in to fish out a couple of green ones. Her gaze focused on the plump, green spheres, contemplating. For a split second, she hesitated, breath caught behind her voice, but then he felt the give in her ribs, the vibration through his chest.

"My mom always said she craved salty things when she was pregnant with me. Once, she sent my dad out twelve blocks in a snowstorm to a movie theater to buy her 'real popcorn' - with extra butter."

Pausing her munching, she stirred the ziti, but returned to the wall of his chest, resting back against him. His spot looking over her shoulder afforded him a perfect view of the smile crossing her lips as she continued to relate the memory.

"Dad always said it wasn't her fault - he blamed the 'alien parasite' that was taking over her body - that was me." She slanted a look to him with a quirk of her brow. "Apparently he called me 'AP' right up until the delivery room when they figured out I was girl."

The thought seemed to have tickled her, and he couldn't help his answering huff of a chuckle.

"Jim called you an alien parasite? Somehow that doesn't fit my image of your dad - all sweet and fatherly."

"The way he tells it, my mom walked around for nine months like a woman possessed. She never used to cry, was pretty even-keeled, didn't pick fights. But as soon as I was in the picture, she became a 'raving lunatic' - her words. She always said she was lucky he didn't divorce her, but he was convinced I was the bad influence. Ornery, or something."

"What, you? My timid, blushing flower? However could he suggest such a thing?"

That got him an indignant knock in the temple with the side of her head.

"Ow! I'm wounded."

"Oh, come on, that did not hurt."

Curling his fingertips into her sides just enough to hit her ticklish spot, he got a threatening "hey," out of her in retaliation.

Just one syllable of the authoritative Beckett voice was enough to make him behave, and she went back to stirring, spooned up some sauce and held it up for him to taste. As he leaned over her shoulder to sip at the marinara and hum his approval, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head with the sheer joy bursting on his tongue, she straightened up a bit, stretched to her full, barefoot, five-feet-nine-inches.

"Thank you."

Her words were so quiet, he almost missed them.

"What for?"

Turning her head toward his chin, she slowly closed the distance, shut her eyes as she nuzzled her cheek along his jaw.

"For being here." Something eased behind his ribs, and he finally let his arms curl around her waist, fingers splaying over her flat belly where he imagined their tiny start of a little boy or girl was tucked safely inside. There was no flinch, no retreat at the contact, just another warm exhale against his skin, and then, "You're a good man, Castle. And I'm not... easy."

She was trying so hard. And slowly but surely, she was letting him in. It was too much to hope for. But that stupid, optimistic part of him which had kept him coming back, stopped him from giving up every time before, was kicking in again, letting him want things. Hugging her tighter to him, he layered humor over truth.

"You're a piece of cake. Name's listed on the Urban Dictionary page under 'low maintenance.'"

That won him a genuine little laugh. Just that tiny peal lit up his heart, teased his cheeks wider into a smile.

"You want to go put your feet up; I'll finish dinner?"

Her weight shifted forward, pulling her body away from him, breaking that all-too-brief connection. She spooned two pieces of ziti out, blew across the steaming pasta, tipped the spoon in his direction. After he plucked one tube up gingerly and blew some more, she caught the other between her teeth, chewed thoughtfully.

"Actually, my feet are feeling pretty good tonight." She winked and gestured to the piece of ziti still pinched between his fingers. "Just about ready. Besides, I'm invested now. Wouldn't be fair to disappear before the job's done."

# * # * # * #

Kate was well into _The Girl Who Played with Fire_, curled up on one end of the couch with her arm propped on a pillow, when he finished the dishes.

"You want a glass of milk? Hot cocoa? I have extra marshmallows."

There was a noncommittal grunt in response.

Deciding she would let him know if she needed anything, he grabbed his laptop and settled in on the other end of the sofa. It couldn't hurt to get his next chapter started, even if he wasn't currently under threat of death or breach of contract from Gina.

As he threw himself back into the plot, the middle of a chase scene that found Nikki without her weapon and back-up still blocks away, the action just wouldn't flow. She was supposed to be jumping off a pedestrian bridge, and he had planned for her to sprain an ankle, but suddenly he felt compelled to switch it to a wrist... Hmm. No, he didn't need to have art imitate life any more than it already did with their relationship. No good. He was too distracted for Nikki. Shutting the laptop again, he stood to pace.

"Castle, I can't concentrate on my book with you twitching like that."

_She_ couldn't concentrate on _her_ book? Lovely. Not like she was actually writing it or anything.

"Larsson's got you sucked in, huh?"

Looking up with a disdainful tilt to her head, she smiled - a little too saccharine for his taste.

"You jealous?"

"Over a passing, posthumous flirtation with a Swedish journalist? Never."

The cute little scrunch of her nose told him she wasn't expecting his relatively well-adjusted, self-confident reply.

"Besides, that series is only three books long. I'm up to six on Nikki, and the Barracuda and Bulldog emailed me the contract for my new three-book deal on Friday. You'll always come back to _Heat_ in the end."

Her squinting huff couldn't completely hide the laughter in her eyes, the telltale quirk of the left corner of her mouth. She might have fallen in love with Richard Alexander Rodgers, but his Kate had long ago admitted her initial infatuation with Rick Castle, the writer.

"Plus, the ending on this one?" he gestured toward the volume laying open on the arm of the couch beside her, "a little iffy on the believability scale. I would never leave Nikki-"

"Don't you _dare_ ruin the ending, Richard Castle, or I will knock you in the head with this cast."

Oh, that got her riled. He tried to squelch his grin at the fire flashing green, but that settled to simmering indignation when it hit her that he was just toying with her.

"Fine. Just for that, I'm not going to read the next Nikki Heat book."

"What? But _Heat Lightning_ is the best one yet! They run off and-"

She held up a hand.

"Uh uh. No spoilers."

"So you _are_ going to read it. Admit it, you can't resist my winning characterization, my breathtaking action sequences, my steamy sex scenes..."

Kate held up her left arm at him, reminiscent of a club.

"Ok, ok, I get the idea. And hey, actually, that is an idea. I still need to sign that thing, don't I? I think I just figured out what to write."

Castle spun on his heel toward the bedroom.

"Where is that pack of permanent markers?"

"Wouldn't markers be in your desk drawer?"

"No, you confiscated them last week after I drew a small addition to your tattoo while you were sleeping. You always stash the confiscated items in your nightstand."

"Wait, Castle, don't-"

But he had already opened the drawer, found the colorful card tucked into the flap of the bright red envelope sitting right on top of his markers.

It had a cartoon of a superhero on the front, a golden "D" across the chest, red cape billowing behind.

Grabbing it along with the markers, he stepped back out to the living room, thoroughly confused.

"What's this?"

He stopped just shy of the coffee table.

"It's a birthday card."

But her dad's birthday was months away. Besides, he didn't think Jim was really the superhero type. Had she-? No. Even _his_ Kate wasn't sentimental enough to... _Was_ she?

"Who's it for?"

The flush on her cheeks, the tug of her lower lip between her teeth, her refusal to look up from the page of her novel conspired to tell the tale.

"You got this for me?"

He hadn't meant for it to come out quite so quiet, so breathy, so desperate and needy, but she looked up at him then, a little wrinkle forming between her eyebrows.

"I... did. I know; it's stupid. I mean, I was thinking it would be from..."

All of a sudden, it was a little tough to breathe, and for some reason, his eyes were stinging.

"From the baby? You got me a birthday card from our baby?" His mind just couldn't quite wrap around it. "Kate, that may be the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

Her whole face broke open with the smile.

"Yeah?"

It was that soft, unsure, completely disarming voice she almost never used - one hundred percent Kate, not a trace of Beckett.

"Yeah."

God he wanted to kiss her. Just take her in his arms, hold her, love her, make everything else go away - all the fear and the pain and the threats and the death. Couldn't they just have this? Maybe it was his ridiculous optimism talking, but tonight he was convinced they could make it if all they had to do was _this_.

"It's not signed yet."

Blinking back what were certainly not the makings of tears, he turned back to his room, headed for the nightstand.

"I'm gonna put this back right where I found it. Forget it I ever saw a card. There was no card. And now I'm signing that cast, so at least if you knock me upside the head with it, maybe it'll leave some trace evidence for Lanie to find."

Almost an hour later, he capped the extra-fine point Sharpie and let go of his hold on her elbow. It had been a struggle to convince her to hand over her arm and keep still for so long, but she had finally given up arguing and gone back to her book, let him push her sleeve up above the edge of the hard, slightly uneven surface. Now, as he surveyed his handiwork, clearish block letters covering the entire upper surface of the cast from wrist to elbow, he let out a contented sigh. He'd done good work.

Expecting at least an exasperated jerk of her arm away from his lap at the close of his scribbling, he glanced over to find her asleep, cheek pillowed on the open page of the novel still resting on the arm of the sofa.

Huh. Maybe that was why she had quit arguing. He did tend to get a little wrapped up once a chapter started flowing...

"Hey, Kate."

There was no response, so he added a hand stroking along the ridge of her shoulder.

"Beckett, I'm all done. Why don't you wake up so we can go to bed?"

"Mmm?"

Her lids clenched tight, and she rolled her neck.

"Time is it?"

"A little after ten."

A big breath that looked suspiciously like a suppressed yawn followed, so he continued to nudge.

"Let's go get ready for bed."

A stretch, followed by a sleepy series of blinks, and then-

"Castle! What did you _do_ to my cast?"

Sliding halfway down the couch in a little under a second, he retreated as far into the corner as he could get.

"Signed... it?"

Waving the limb in question menacingly in his direction, she pointed with her good hand at his words.

"This is not a signature. This is not even a paragraph. This is a book chapter."

"A scene, actually. It's Nikki and Rook in Bora Bora, and she has a sprained wrist, and she's in an air cast, and I'm going to have to take a picture because I need to use it for the end of the book..."

That cute little vein in her forehead started to pulse.

"Castle, you wrote a scene from the end of your book on my arm?"

Ooo. Not so cute when coupled with the Beckett death glare.

"It's a love scene. It's really sweet."

An almost inhuman sound emanated from her throat as she stood and stormed toward the bedroom. Jumping up, he started turning out lights as he followed, making sure to give her a couple minutes lead time, just in case she intended to make good on her earlier threat with the club... cast... whatever.

He found her brushing her teeth, set a pair of his flannel pajamas on the vanity at her elbow, since she had exhausted her range of nightwear that would fit over the... evidence. It didn't hurt that these were long-sleeved.

"You get it taken off on Friday."

She spit into the sink and rinsed, then pinned him with that glare in the mirror.

"How am I supposed to keep from reading it until then?"

Oh... Oh. So she wasn't mad about the writing so much as she was about being _spoiled _for the ending. Huh. Once a fangirl, always a fangirl, he supposed...

"You've been wearing sleeves over it every day anyway."

He stepped up to brush his own teeth as she ran her brush through her hair and started adeptly unbuttoning clothes one-handed.

Their bathroom ballet finished in silence, punctuated by the occasional muttered word or phrase he couldn't quite make out.

When both were lying on their backs, her surrounded by her usual stack of pillows and him carefully not touching her side of the bed with any part of his body, it became clear that neither was actually falling asleep.

"Thank you for the card."

Her head turned sharply toward him on her pillow until he could see the moonlight reflecting off the curve of her cheek, catching the rim of green in each iris. He couldn't quite make out that look, maybe part confusion, part surprise. Maybe the version of him she was used to wasn't usually so forthcoming.

"You're welcome. It was a stupid thing-"

He turned on his side to face her, tucking his hand under his pillow to prop under his head.

"It was not stupid. Maybe a little sappy, but definitely not stupid. I love it."

The next phrase hovered unspoken; he'd pressed his luck enough for one night.

Pulling the cast across her stomach, she turned to match his position, held the injured arm out between them.

"Thank you for my scene."

"Seriously?" He feigned scooting back away. "You're not going to club me with it?"

"Not yet. Gotta read it, then decide."

"You're worse than that critic at the _Ledger_, and all he ever does is lambast my prose for the whole city to see."

Leaving her head on the pillow, she slid her hand out from underneath and curled her fingers around his sleeve, tugged a little.

"You don't have to hide. I'm not going to bludgeon you to death in your own bed."

His lips quirked up in response to her self-conscious fiddling with the cotton piping of his pajamas.

"I'm sorry about what happened last night."

It hit him like a punch in the gut, after such a warm, light evening, this reminder of all that pain.

"Not... _everything_... that happened. But how it happened. And what happened after. I was sure I was going to remember."

Moonlight pooled in the moisture gathering at her lashes.

Closing his hand around her fingers, he sandwiched her hand between his.

"And I thought you already had."

The bitter cold shock of disappointment still echoed through him.

"But I didn't. And I couldn't face hurting you again."

She couldn't even face him fully now, focusing instead on his pillow, a spot a few inches shy of his face. If she was bringing this up, the least he could do was lay it all bare with her.

"I wasn't the only one hurting, Kate. You were crying all that time in the bathroom, weren't you?"

"You were awake, then."

It wasn't really a question, so he didn't vocalize an answer, just waited her out until she kept plugging through.

"Do you think maybe we could... start over with this part?"

Fear that she was going to bury it, bury everything, made him brave.

"I can't pretend it didn't happen, Kate. I won't. Last night, like every night for as long as I can remember, I wanted you. You wanted me, too. We're adults. Regardless of whatever else may or may not have been true, we love each other. And so we had mind-blowing sex."

She finally looked up at him, then, lifting her head from the pillow, extracting her hand from his, pushing up on her elbow and inching closer.

"I don't want to pretend anything. I just want to... slow down."

Funny how a concept that had once been so frustrating now felt oddly comforting in its familiarity.

"I can do slow."

Her eyes flicked to his mouth, back up to meet his gaze.

Raising her casted arm from the bed between them, she lifted it over his side, started to scoot into his chest a bit, but something must have hurt, because she let out a little gasp and dropped her arm on his ribs, surprising him. He couldn't quite suppress the "oof."

Nearly springing back, she started in on a litany of apologies, pulling away to her side of the bed again.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm a big, strong, tough guy. I can take a little bludgeoning now and then."

"I didn't mean to... I was just..."

"You want to just cuddle, Beckett? Is that what you're saying?"

"Ugh. Never mind."

She flopped onto her other side, facing away, grabbing pillows to stuff under her arm, but he inched over, tucked himself against the slim curve of her spine, used the warmth of his body to convince her he wasn't really making fun.

"How's this?"

His nose nuzzled into the soft strands of hair at the nape of her neck, his legs curling up into the hollows behind her knees. He felt her take in the breath, her whole body stiff against him, then release it with her answer.

"Good. It's good."

As he settled into the pillow, rearranged the covers over them both, he felt her muscles let loose some of that tension, her shoulders slacken, her hips relax back into his. When she spoke again, the words came out softer, without the edge of panic.

"You okay?"

Letting his lips brush over the tender skin of her neck, he could feel the tightness deep in his chest start to release.

"Mm. Favorite way to sleep."

It wasn't until the flat of her palm covered his hand that he realized he had been stroking her belly just below her navel, slow little circles, over and over.

"How's AP? Not demanding any popcorn?"

"No popcorn. Jus' sleep."

As her breathing began to even out, he thought he heard the buzz of a text message on his phone behind him on the nightstand, but sleep was already circling, sinking down in thick, drowsy tendrils around him, blurring out everything but the solid presence of the woman in his arms.

Whatever it was could wait until morning.

# * # * # * #

His eyes cracked open to the first streaks of dawn through the windows. Funny, those streaks of light weren't actually coming from the windows so much as...

"You're reading it!"

Kate let out a little squeak jerking back against him, as she dropped her cell phone and attempted to roll the oversized sleeve back down over her cast.

"I was _not_ reading. I was checking to make sure the permanent marker didn't smudge on the sheets."

Castle was still half-draped over her, in fact, he wasn't sure he had moved at all since falling asleep spooned behind her hours before. It was still before seven, and the sun wasn't actually up yet - it must have been her flashlight app that had woken him.

"Did you like the part when she dove in the water and lost her suit?"

Kate half turned in his arms to throw him a sidelong glance.

"Castle, if she has a cast on her arm, she can't even get in the water, much less dive off a private dock and lose her bikini."

Leaning in slightly, he grinned in triumph.

"Ha! You _were_ reading! Fibber."

"Please, I caught the word 'bikini' and had to see what ridiculous thing you'd done to my character this time."

A very familiar eye roll punctuated her attempt at snark.

"Your character, huh? So you admit you feel some sense of ownership over Nikki Heat? Well, if you'd been reading more carefully you would have seen it's an air cast. Those are waterproof."

Ducking out from under his arm, which had still been wrapped protectively around her middle, she stormed off to the bathroom in a huff.

"Just let me know what you think of the ending, if it's up to my usual steam-inducing standards."

The door shut with a resounding thud on her growl.

Rolling onto his back, he stretched long and hard, craning his neck into the pillows and arching his back. God he felt like a million bucks. He hadn't slept so well in... seven days. All of this had started just seven days ago, on that rainy Tuesday afternoon. Rolling out of bed, he grabbed his phone, thumbed the slider and typed in his passcode.

By the look of the barely-pinking sky out the window, there would be no rain today.

Esposito had sent a text referring him to an email attachment late the night before. Opening the message, he read the description Matthews had given of their suspect from the crime scene. A blonde _woman_, late twenties/early thirties, wearing blue scrubs and dark-rimmed glasses. She had been standing at the driver's side of Kate's cruiser when Matthews approached, and she had one arm stretched in through the open window, as if she were feeling for a pulse, or maybe holding pressure on Beckett's injury.

So it wasn't Chris after all... But that surgeon's assistant had been blonde, and she'd worn scrubs that first morning in the hospital. What was her name? Gillian? Julie? Juliette. That was it.

Why hadn't he checked his messages last night? They could have already taken her into custody. Clicking the attachment, it took just a moment to download. When he saw the line drawing, though, it looked nothing like Juliette. In fact, it looked nothing like anyone he could remember from the week since the wreck.

Damn it. Back to square one.

Kate stepped out of the bathroom and toward the closet, face still set in a vague pout at being caught reading.

"Hey, come look at this sketch - the suspect Matthews saw at the scene."

She met him at the foot of the bed, a crinkle spreading across her brow.

He heard her inhale, a sharp sound that drew his gaze to her face, found her eyes locked on his phone. She was white as a sheet. Letting out a tiny grunt, she rushed back into the bathroom.

In her haste, she didn't quite get the door closed, so when he followed her in, he caught sight of her dropping to her knees in front of the porcelain bowl just in time to empty her stomach. He didn't care about modesty, even though he knew she would be embarrassed. Instead, he just made his way swiftly to the cabinet as she continued to heave violently, wetted a washcloth and grabbed the biggest, fluffiest towel he could lay hands on, dropped beside her on the tile and gathered her hair with one hand, stroked the other gently up and down her spine.

When the worst of it seemed to be over, he flushed the toilet and grabbed the cool cloth, put it into her good hand. She scrubbed the cotton square over her whole face, stayed buried there for a moment while he nudged the folded towel under her knees. She was still shaking with the force of being so horribly ill; her whole body trembled slightly as she sucked in desperate gulps of air trying to get control of herself.

"Shh. Shh. It's okay. You're okay."

He hoped if this was what pregnancy was going to be for her, that at least it only lasted the first trimester. One website had said morning sickness could last all the way to the end. God, he wasn't sure he could handle seeing her like this all the time. It tore him up watching her suffer, at the mercy of her body, the hormones.

She finally lowered the washcloth, laid it on the counter, sank back to rest on her heels, eyes closing but breath beginning to even out.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but everyone says the best thing is to eat a little. I've got crackers. And there are three cases of imported ginger ale that showed up yesterday while we were out - no clue where those came from, but they look like the good stuff."

She was pinching the bridge of her nose, but some of her color had come back into her face.

"You think you can get up, get out of here?"

She nodded, opening her eyes but keeping them on the floor.

Knees cracking, he stood first, reaching under her arms to lift her to her feet. As soon as she was up, she turned, buried her face in his chest, clung to his shirt weakly with her good hand.

"Stomach a little better?"

She leaned away from his chest, finally meeting his eyes, hers wide and filling.

"Castle, this isn't morning sickness."

Denial was something Kate Beckett was well acquainted with, especially in regard to emotional self-awareness, but this situation was pretty clear.

"Sure it is."

Her fingers wrapped more tightly into the cotton fabric of his pajama top.

"No, Castle." She pulled in two quick, shuddering breaths through parted, trembling lips. "It was the sketch." She swallowed hard, eyes shutting tight, and for a moment he thought she might be sick again. "When I saw it, everything started spinning."

Kate's knuckles were white where her hand was fisted in the cotton plaid over his heart. Her nostrils flared as she swayed back slightly, and he caught her around the waist, afraid her knees might be about to give out. But she kept going, her voice strengthening with every word.

"I... I remember that face. The hair and the thick glasses. She was wearing blue scrubs. She was there, standing at the crosswalk, looking straight at me as I passed. It... it almost made me stop - the way she was watching. It was just before I was hit."

Oh god, so this _was_ the person they were looking for. But wait, she just said she remem-

"_Before_ you were hit? You saw her _before_ the truck hit you?"

She nodded absently, eyes still slightly unfocused, but his thoughts were razor sharp, zeroed in on that one word. That one perfect word. He didn't want the hope to bloom, but he couldn't help it; it was unfurling in his chest, filling up all the cold, dark, empty places.

But maybe it was another false alarm. Maybe she had another dream last night. Maybe that was all this was. His heart was pounding, little spots starting to haze and coalesce across his field of vision.

He took her by the shoulders, looked her straight in the eye.

"Kate, you remember...?"

She didn't flinch, didn't try to look away, just looked straight back at him, green sharpening as she pulled him into focus. In fact, he would almost say she looked... empowered.

"Everything, Castle. I remember everything."

# * # * # * #

A/N: Rumors of my abandonment of this fic have been greatly exaggerated.

This chapter is dedicated to the lovely AC for her birthday, even though I am horribly late. Please don't die of shock…

Thank you to everyone who has read and commented, asked about this chapter on twitter or tumblr, and otherwise been an excellent cheerleader. We have a few more chapters to go in this little story. Thanks for sticking with it, and with me.

Alex, you are now doing THREE jobs, but at least you're getting paid for two of them. I'm lucky to have you still on board as my editor despite the fact that you're hard at work on real life things. Thank you for everything.

Twitter: Kate_Christie_

Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com


	17. Chapter 17

**Rewound Chapter Seventeen**

"Everything?"

He couldn't breathe. There was no air, no room left in his chest with the pounding swell of his heart, stuttering along, waiting for her to tell him it was true, that she'd really come back. All of her.

His Kate.

Her eyes were clear, but everything else seemed unsteady, frail.

"It's all... mixed up." Her lids closed, lips pressed tight for just an instant, highlighting the uneven stutter of her breathing. "Things are... shifting around. But I think everything is there." The rim of golden brown flecked with green zeroed back in on him. "We're there."

Warmth curled out from deep in his core, poured through his veins, suffused his skin.

Oh, Kate. Thank God.

His fingers were starting to go numb from the grip he had on her shoulders, but he was afraid if he let go she might sink back to the floor. Or maybe he would. At that moment, he wasn't sure either of them would make it alone.

Her eyes narrowed, face hardening.

"I need to see the sketch again; where's your phone?"

There was an edge to her question, but a waver as well. Maybe she couldn't face the confusion shuffling through her brain. Maybe she didn't want to. The case would always be easier, whatever the circumstances. Far be it from him to deny her her coping mechanisms.

Digging in the pocket of his pajamas, he fumbled the phone out and thumbed in the pass code, holding it so she could see the graphic. There was steel in in her voice when she spoke again.

"I don't just remember this face. I _know_ this face. Castle, this is Hannah."

From the shift in her expression - the deepening of the furrow cutting into her brow, the subtle stiffening of her spine, the dart of her eyes verging on panic - he felt he ought to know who she was talking about, recognize that name, but he was drawing an absolute blank.

"Who?"

The muscles around her mouth contracted at his question: impatience.

"The woman I met at Zen Vitamin. The one who invited me to her pregnant yoga class." The vein in her forehead started to pulse, and her voice took on a hint of desperation. "Her hair is different, no glasses, but this is the same woman."

_Fuck_.

Castle let his lids lower slowly to cover his own self-reproach.

_This_ was her friend. The one who had earned her trust, who, on at least two separate occasions over the past week, had talked her down from a ledge when he had failed.

Her would-be assassin had been hiding right under their noses all this time. And Kate, the woman who had taken years to chip through her carefully constructed walls, had let _Bracken's agent_ in.

"Come on, we have to get to the 12th."

She defaulted into in full Detective Beckett mode, ready to steamroll over whoever stood in her way, including him.

Breaking free from what was left of his hold, she stepped toward the shower, only to have to catch herself on the door handle when her knees started to give.

"Hey - hang on a second. Slow down, or you're not going to make it out the front door, much less to the precinct."

Standing close, but careful not to crowd, he watched, hands flexing impotently at his sides as her frame rose and fell once with a reluctant breath. Shoulders squaring once more, she straightened, let go of the door on less wobbly legs.

"Fine."

Stepping gingerly across to the sink, she ran water over her toothbrush. The momentary press of the heel of her hand against the granite countertop didn't escape his attention.

"How about I make you some toast?"

Her profile was hidden behind the curtain of her hair, but he saw the bob of her head as she nodded once, not pausing in the mechanical routine of brushing her teeth.

Not five minutes had passed when he returned with two slices of multigrain, neatly spread with her favorite plum preserves, and one of the little glass bottles of ginger ale. Kate was perched on the edge of the bed in her robe, face scrubbed, hair messily pulled back in one of the soft cotton headbands she had figured out how to use one-handed.

His phone was in her good hand, the thumb of which was scrolling through emails from the boys from the night before. At least she had remembered his passcode.

"I called Espo. Told him we had information, we were on our way."

He set the tray on the mattress beside her, tipped the bendy straw in her direction.

"Your stomach any better?"

Setting the phone on the bedside table, she reached tentatively for the toast, redirected to the ginger ale.

"I'm fine, Castle. It's not my stomach. It was just the shock."

Sipping at the golden, fizzing beverage, she looked up at him in surprise.

"This stuff is amazing."

"I found a note on the packing slip that said: 'Drink me. Doctor's orders.'"

Taking another swallow, she smiled ruefully as she set it back on the tray.

"I told her not to go overboard."

He sat on the other side of the tray, careful not to tip its contents, and raised an eyebrow.

"Lanie. She told me her sister lived on this stuff when she was pregnant."

"Hey, whatever works. I'll buy stock in ginger ale if it makes you feel better."

Picking up the first piece of toast, she nibbled at one corner.

"I'm fine."

"You tried that line already."

Motioning to the plate, she pulled in a breath and inspected the even smear of dark purple jam.

"You have the other piece. I'm not going to be able to eat them both right now."

"Kate, you have to eat."

Even he could hear the unwelcome reproach in his tone.

"I know." The edge was back in her voice. "But I'm also trying to take it slowly. Pick your battles."

Crunching down on the toast, she chewed thoughtfully, traded off for the ginger ale to swallow.

Fine. No reason for perfectly good toast to go to waste. As he mirrored her munching, he took in the curve of her cheeks, the clench of her jaw as it worked up and down. Her pallor had faded, replaced by pink cheeks; she was almost glowing in the first dim rays of light through the blinds.

Some moments her beauty just socked him in the gut. No makeup, hair a mess, robe half-tied. Not ten minutes before, she had been sicker than he'd ever seen her, but now she was radiant.

And he was staring.

"Castle - what's wrong? Do I look that bad? I know that wasn't the most pleasant thing for you to see."

Managing to get the last bite of his toast down, he licked the last of the jam off his thumb and tried to formulate a response that didn't sound utterly insulting.

"Kate, you're gorgeous. You're absolutely beautiful."

Gripping the edge of terry cloth, she tugged one lapel of her robe further across her chest, ran her fingers through her hair.

"And you're ridiculous."

Dropping down from the edge of the bed, he knelt before her, laid one hand on the edge of the bed beside her robe, still not sure where the line was, how close he was allow. Even with her memories finally swirling around inside her head again, he couldn't assume she wanted to be touched, or was ready to jump straight back to how things were. Things might never be just as they were before. Her world had fractured. The pieces would knit, make a stronger, better whole, but there would be scars. Hadn't they had enough of those for two lifetimes?

Curling his fingers into the blankets, he held off the now familiar ache, told himself it wouldn't be long. Right now, she needed reassurance, and that was something he could give. Taking in a lungful of air, he tried to tease out one tiny thread from the jumble.

"If you have all those memories floating back, then you remember that precinct picnic last year with the potato salad - you refused to eat it because it had bacon, which I still say is an invalid argument, because anything at a picnic is better with bacon. After the glory of our momentous victory in the three-legged race faded, surely you haven't forgotten the next twenty-four hours of taking care of me while I puked my guts up, among other things. You didn't even say 'I told you so.' If being pregnant with our kid is going to make you sick, then just think of this as my chance to repay you."

Finishing off the ginger ale, she set the bottle back on the tray, reached for his hand.

"I really don't think that's going to happen again. But if it does, it's not going to be a twenty four hour stomach bug."

Her fingers were cool as they curled into his palm, but their gentle squeeze felt familiar, like _them_, and he found himself fighting back the first sting of tears. God, what a mess, crying because she held his hand... He swallowed hard; probably let a little too much show.

"You're stuck with me, you know. Not just for the next eight months."

Her eyes dropped to their hands, clasped together beside her knee, as a crease appeared between her brows.

"Rick, where's my ring?"

The words snapped him out of his moment of self-indulgence. Back to business. Get dressed. Go to work. Solve the case. Clearing his throat, he scanned the bedside table.

"You've been leaving it in your jewelry box on the bureau, haven't you?"

Rocking back on his heels, he moved to rise, but she held onto his hand, kept him there. Her words were slow, hesitant.

"Not... my mother's ring."

Green flashed down at him, interrupted by a long blink of her lashes.

"I want _my_ ring."

Oh.

Something snapped, a band releasing from around his heart, and the smile bubbled up bright, broke free. Standing, he found he didn't want to let go of her, even for the moment it would take to retrieve... But no matter, she stood, let him lead her into his office to the safe.

Once the door swung open, the wooden box wasn't difficult to find. It was right on top, where he had placed it only a few days before, after his unmentioned stop at the jewelers.

Maybe it was his imagination, but the box seemed to shake as he withdrew it. Needing both hands, he finally dropped hers, breath caught somewhere in his throat as he cracked the lid. This wasn't months ago; he wasn't down on one knee in the grass, scared half to death she might say no; why was his pulse pounding in his ears, his breath coming in shallow pants?

"I got a chain for it - just in case you..."

Her fingers were already tangling in the thick rope of silver metal, drawing it up until the ring lifted off the satin lining, spinning in the brightening light of the morning. He couldn't read the look on her face as she watched the splash of sun through the stones, cataloguing, maybe, but then he caught a tremble, just before her teeth sank into her lower lip, and one corner of her mouth slanted into a smile.

"Here, let me."

Lifting the necklace from her grip and spreading it between his hands, he raised it over her head, laid it deftly around her neck, met her own hand as he trailed his down to settle the satin band between her breasts. Her fingers pressed his against the stones and into the faded pink circle of skin still visible beneath.

As she closed the short distance between them, the thought struck him that he wasn't entirely sure which version of Kate was about to kiss him - the woman he had curled around as she fell asleep the night before, frightened, frustrated, with scars so fresh she still did battle with them every hour, or the woman who had already put in the work, determined to overcome the demons of her past, the one whose smile left no doubts about what she saw in forever when he slipped this ring on her finger for the first time.

But when her lips met his, the caress feather light, fairy wings brushing warm at his mouth, eyes open and alight and watching, he found that it didn't matter who she was or even what she remembered. She was Kate Beckett, the woman he loved, the woman who loved him, and as long as that was true, the rest would fix itself.

The buzz of his phone in the next room broke the spell, made him jump, though she didn't startle or pull away. After a moment, her warm breath replaced the press of lips with soft words.

"Hey. Relax. Don't you remember? I already said 'yes'."

Her teasing smile leaned in for one final smooch, and he pulled her in tight, drew it out as long as he could. He would never forget that day, and it turned out she hadn't, either. Finally breaking their clench, she leaned back just far enough to catch his eye.

"We should get ready. We have a dragon to slay."

# * # * # * #

"She doesn't exist."

Esposito dropped a handful of brown folders on the edge of her desk, his tone carefully controlled frustration.

"Why am I not surprised?"

They had been at it for hours. Kate had sent Castle off for lunch just so she wouldn't have to hear the litany of mumbled curses every time he hit a dead end searching stacks of known campaign and personal associates for their favorite senator.

"Hannah Brown has no identity beyond December of last year. Her social security number, her driver's license, her job references - all fake. No trail, no trace of her or her DNA to match to the hair from the delivery truck. Beckett, I hate to say it, but this is classic Bracken."

"I know."

She had expected no less. But that didn't make the reality any less infuriating.

"How's Ryan coming with the traffic cams?"

Esposito sank into Castle's chair, keeping his voice low. They were still unsure of whose eyes and ears might be tuned on them.

"Hasn't come up for air since the last batch of footage came in three hours ago."

Marking her place on the massive list of donors from Bracken's last campaign, she turned her attention to the pile of files, started thumbing through the first one.

"I'm not convinced he's going to find anything even with the wider search radius. A blonde woman in glasses wearing scrubs in downtown Manhattan at rush hour? It's a needle in a haystack."

"Our boy's done some crazy _Where's Waldo_ magic before. Don't count him out yet."

On cue, the detective stalked bleary-eyed across the bullpen, waiting until he was standing behind his partner to speak quietly to them both.

"I might have something," his blue eyes scanned the room and then flicked to Kate. "Need you to come take a look to be sure. Is Castle back yet?"

"Should be any minute. Why?"

"I think we should all look together. Maybe it'll jog his memory. I'd be willing to bet she's been casing your place since long before you met her. He coulda' seen her around, not made the connection."

Kate rose from her chair, good hand planted on the wooden surface. She was learning the tricks of this pregnancy thing, albeit slowly.

"Esposito, can you text him to meet us in the film room?"

She was learning the tricks of having only one texting hand, too.

They fell in line as he pulled out his phone.

Seated in the darkened room, a glorified closet outfitted with playback equipment of various types for digital and analogue media, she blinked to adjust to the brightness as the biggest screen came to life. Though the picture was crisp, the camera was situated atop a traffic light at a large intersection, so individual pedestrians were tough to see in detail. Just as a mass of suits started into the crosswalk, Ryan held up the tip of his pen to point at a hurried figure near the back of the crowd.

"There. See the glasses? And those could definitely be scrubs. She's blonde."

She was out of the camera's field of view in an instant, swallowed back into the crowd.

"Back it up, and slow it down."

On the second time through, she tracked the woman back to the group waiting for the light to change.

"Could be."

Ryan clicked the mouse, minimizing that window and pulling up another.

"I used the location and time stamp to pull this from a jewelry store in the next block."

This image was black and white, but the camera was much closer to eye level. He slowed the feed down just as a thin woman in dark scrubs stepped into the field of view. The camera caught only a few steps, but just as she crossed in front of the store entrance, she turned her head, bringing her face into focus.

The image froze. As Ryan zoomed in, her stomach rolled.

Another image superseded the one on the screen - the same arched brows, the same turned-up nose, but this time her features were bathed in harsh sunlight, cobalt eyes staring straight at Kate from the busy corner. She could still smell the scent of hotdogs wafting through her open window, could hear a horn sounding from across the street.

Kate could feel the tingle of awareness creeping down her spine: something wasn't right. But she shrugged it off, gripped the wheel of her cruiser tighter and returned her attention to the intersection, stepping on the gas when the light turned green.

Then everything shattered - tires screeched, filling her nose with the acrid scent of burnt rubber, the violent smash of rending steel giving way to her own suspended scream. The edges of her vision hazed out as pain flashed sharp from her wrist, followed rapid fire by the thudding impact of her head against the crumpling window frame. As the image faded to black, the coppery tang of her own blood lingered, leaving her shaky and hollow, cold sweat beading on her brow.

Sucking in an unsteady breath, she released her white-knuckled grip on the edge of her chair and swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. The boys were pointedly fixing their eyes on the unchanging screen as she came around. When she had some semblance of control back, she tried her voice.

"That's her. No question about it."

As the sick slide of memory began to fade, anger bubbled up to replace it.

"You said Hannah was pregnant. No sign of a baby bump," Ryan redirected.

"Just a disguise, probably to make me more likely to trust her, confide in her. She played me for information."

How could she have been so naive? Talking to a stranger about being pregnant when she barely felt comfortable talking to her family, her friends?

Ryan clicked print and turned kind, determined eyes on her.

"But we've got her now. It's just a matter of time until we figure out her connection to Bracken, and then we bring her in and sit on her until she talks."

"That's always worked so well in the past."

She knew the sarcasm didn't belong in this investigation, but indignation at being so easily taken in by a kind face and a Southern accent was coloring her judgment.

"Yo, what's with the negativity, Beckett? This is our best crack yet at frying this bastard; you wanna waste it beating yourself up over falling for a set-up?"

There was a quiet tap, and light slanted in through the door, silhouetting the familiar slope of Castle's broad shoulders.

"What did I miss?"

His attention tracked from Kate to the image on the screen, and she spit out the answer to the question in his eyes.

"It's her. It's Hannah."

Ryan chanced breaking in on the tense moment of silence that followed.

"Have you ever seen her before? Around your neighborhood, maybe? Or didn't Beckett say she works in the place where you buy coffee?"

Stepping up behind her, Castle leaned in, inspecting the image more closely on the screen.

"If I did, I don't remember."

"Think long hair, no glasses."

With a press of his lips he gave a tiny shake of his head, still focused on the black and white face.

"But aren't we going to bring her in regardless?"

"Let's update Gates. I think we wait until we have something concrete - a link to Bracken, not just my memory and some camera footage from six blocks from the scene. We start hauling in Bracken's hired gun, we show our whole hand. He still thinks I can't remember, and for now, that's our only advantage."

There was just a hint of panic creeping in at the edges of Castle's stance, his voice, the dart of his eyes.

"We've got the EMT. He can put her at the scene."

Volleying back with the brunt of her frustration, she smacked the meat of her fisted hand against the table; the resulting thud drew a flinch from Castle and a chastising look from Esposito. Ryan just hunched further into his seat, retrieved the image from the printer.

"We need something solid. We've been burned too many times by going in against him without evidence, without a link. We haul this woman in here now, she won't break, we'll have to let her go, and then she'll disappear, or be dead by morning."

No one seemed to have a response to that, so she pushed back from the desk, prompting Castle to backpedal toward the door as she rose.

"How about some lunch? I have lo mein, I have chow mein, I have chow fun..."

His forced lightheartedness fell flat as they all stepped out into the hall, convening by silent agreement around the cartons of food spread over the break room table.

"There's a creepy egg pancake omelet thing for Gates in the Styrofoam."

Kate grabbed it and headed to the captain's office, using the food as an excuse to fill her in on their progress.

Gates wasted no time digging into the egg foo young as Beckett made the case for going after Hannah, citing their evidence from the films. Her expectations weren't high for getting the go-ahead; they didn't have much, though it was more than they'd had with some of Bracken's other minions over the years.

"When you make the connection, you can bring her in. But you've only got 'till morning - we need that information in time for Castle's showdown at sunrise."

Kate kept her seat and her composure. Castle was _not_ going to face Bracken alone tomorrow morning.

"You mean _our_ showdown."

Gates looked pointedly at her through her lashes.

"For now, I mean Castle's."

There was only so much she could take. Rising, she closed in on the captain's desk.

"Sir -"

"Detective Beckett, I am not putting you in the line of fire tomorrow. Your standing in that park makes you a liability. It gives Bracken all the power. Besides, I need Castle's head in the game. He can't focus if he's concentrating on protecting you. He'll have all the backup he needs. Now go find me an ace to put up his sleeve."

# * # * # * #

She told herself she was being nice, giving Ryan a break from the surveillance media closet. But the truth was she was hiding. She wanted the darkness, the close walls, the flashing, mindless images. And she had graduated from traffic cams to old media clips, searching for a familiar face in the crowd during archived speeches and promotional videos for past campaigns.

Nothing so far.

This was not sulking. This was not feeling sorry for herself. This was not a sentence or a punishment for being such an idiot, letting "Hannah," or whatever her real name was, get inside her head. Who was she kidding? A voice that sounded suspiciously like Dr. Burke's resonant baritone pointed out that hiding in a closet for hours qualified as all of the above. Great. Surely hearing one's therapist's voice inside one's head wasn't the same as "hearing voices."

Calling up another file from the archive folder, Kate tried not to let the nausea overwhelm her as a shot of Bracken's smiling mug filled the screen. This was a recent report, an in-depth feature on the current list of front-runners for the Presidency, chronicling each candidate's rise through the ranks of American politics. Bracken with his wife, holding his infant daughter at an early rally for a City Council seat. He took the podium to the music of cheers from the small crowd gathered in front of City Hall.

The voice-over from the political commentator waxed philosophically in her headphones about his struggle for the common man, his humble background. Crunching down on one of the crackers Castle had slipped into her hand after she had left her lunch mostly uneaten hours before, she mechanically chewed and swallowed, insisting it was the smarmy hand-shaking and back-slapping on the screen making her queasy.

And then she saw it - a blonde ponytail attached to a slight frame, standing off to one side, staring up at the man behind the podium. She needed to turn her head. Her face was to Bracken, back to the camera. Just - turn, damn it. Turn.

They switched to another angle, a close-up on Bracken as he emoted about neighborhood crime statistics, and she let out an audible growl.

Light leaked in through the door, and without taking her eyes off the screen, she could tell whom it was just by the fidgeting of his shadow.

"Castle, either get in here or stay out, but close the damn door. I can't see with the glare."

There was a soft "snick" of the knob and the light slivered to nothingness, sinking her back into full dark. Despite the voice in her headphones droning on about grass roots, she still made out his words.

"No luck."

It wasn't really a question.

She was about to answer anyway when the camera angle changed back. Her words were directed at the shifting image on the screen.

"Yes. Yes, now turn this way."

Kate felt more than saw him sink into the chair beside her, scooting in until his biceps nudged at her upper arm.

"Is that her?"

"I don't know. She won't face the camera."

She felt the warmth of his palm come to rest on her knee, not gripping or squeezing, just present.

At that moment, Bracken pointed to someone in the back of the crowd, and the audience all turned their heads to clap.

Everyone cheered for the faceless honoree, including a young, fresh-faced Hannah Brown.

Freezing the frame, Kate let out a "gotcha" under her breath, felt a squeeze against the ridge of her patella.

But her momentary euphoria deflated when reality sank in. Her jaw clenched until the muscles twitched in protest.

"It's still not enough. So she was listening to him speak at his first City Council campaign rally? So what? Campaigns don't keep a list of attendees."

Abandoning her knee, Castle reached for the mouse, toggled to reverse the film one frame at a time. Lifting one finger up to the screen, he tapped it against the image of a white rectangle coming into view, affixed to Hannah's lapel. She could barely make out a large red "V" in the top corner.

"But they do keep a list of volunteers."

# * # * # * #

The woman wouldn't flinch. For all the warm honey in that Alabama drawl, her eyes were icy cold, fixed on the one-way glass as the team let her stew in interrogation.

Ryan and Esposito had picked her up quietly, just where Kate said she would be - outside the yoga studio two blocks down from Castle's loft. She had appeared just before the start of the prenatal yoga class to which she had invited Kate only the day before.

By the time Kate found the key footage, it had been after five, and Gates had insisted on holding off on getting a warrant after close of business for the campaign records from Bracken's first race. Beckett couldn't disagree. As soon as they made an official overture to one of his old campaigns, alarm bells were bound to sound in Bracken's careful network of operatives. They needed something from Hannah, and even if they couldn't get it, they could still keep her overnight, long enough to keep her from participating in tomorrow's festivities.

"Sir, let me go in there."

Gates was watching their mystery woman almost as closely as Kate was.

"I don't like this."

"Neither do I, which is why I have to be the one asking the questions. If she sees me, she knows we have her."

"And she can run and tell her boss the first chance she gets."

"Forgive me, Sir, but we'll have her until tomorrow, and he'll know she's gone if she was supposed to be part of the show in the morning."

Their captain crossed her arms pointedly over the crisp fabric of her navy blazer, rocked back away from the ghost of her own reflection in the window, and pinned Beckett with narrowed eyes.

"You think you can bluff your way into a confession with no name, no prints, one easily expendable witness who puts her at the scene?"

Castle drew their focus across the room.

"She's certainly got a better shot at it than Ryan and Esposito - no offense, guys."

Both men waved him off as Gates' glare settled on him. She paused, letting him squirm for a beat, before muttering her answer.

"I hate it when you're right. Have I mentioned that lately, Mr. Castle?"

"No Sir. Not in the last couple hours."

He managed to keep the smirk off his face, but Kate could see it skittering below the surface. The captain turned her focus back to Beckett.

"Fine. Take your shot."

Fifteen minutes and one mug of some god-awful herbal tea blend later, she stepped through the door alone.

The blonde curls didn't flinch, but Hannah's eyes tracked to hers.

"Kate?"

In no hurry, she slid into her chair, set her small stack of brown folders squarely on the cool table before her, and flipped open the front of the first one. Looking casually over the brief but bland history of Hannah Brown summarized in her falsified driver's license, work history with Zen Vitamin, including a citation as "Employee of the Month" from February, and current apartment lease, Kate let out a slow breath.

"Hannah Brown, age 38, five-foot-six, one-hundred-five pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes, organ donor. Lives in a fourth floor walk-up at 15 Crosby Street, conveniently close to Yoga Works, where she regularly attends classes, and Zen Vitamin, where she is a model employee after only three months. That address is also conveniently close to 425 Broome Street." Finally glancing up under arched eyebrows, Kate kept a friendly, disinterested tone. "Am I missing anything?"

"Well, these days I'm closer to one fifteen," the Alabama drawl was still firmly in place, as was the cheeky grin.

"Oh, yes, I forgot, you are also conveniently four months pregnant."

"Sweetie, I know you're just startin' down this road, but take it from an old pro. 'Convenient' falls just short of 'delicate' on the list of the worst possible words to describe a pregnancy."

Focusing back on her files, she flipped to the second in the stack, opened it to reveal two enlarged, digitally-enhanced photos, one time-stamped with last Tuesday's date, showing a pixie-haired, flat-bellied version of "Hannah" walking past the jewelry store on her way to Beckett's crime scene, the other a profile of a much younger woman whose pale blue suit stood in stark relief against the podium where Bracken gestured out into the crowd, crowing emphatically in praise of one of his supporters.

Gingerly spinning this folder one hundred eighty degrees, she slid it across the table, letting the quiet friction of paper over the smooth surface act as punctuation.

To her credit, Hannah's easy smile betrayed nothing, but Kate caught a tiny twitch of one eyelid as the woman perused the two images.

"Do these jog your memory?"

The woman paused, seeming to study each photo again, then pinned Beckett with those big baby blues.

"Should they?"

Her words dripped with Hannah's trademark unflappable Southern calm, but the lilt of her voice peaked a little too high. She was making a game of this. A fresh wave of fury crested inside Beckett's chest. She was done playing games.

Leaning in and planting her good hand on the table beside the file, she reigned in the somewhat unfamiliar rush of emotion, and managed to keep her voice cool and even despite the tempest raging behind it.

"Cut the blushing flower act. We both know you're working for Bracken."

Hannah met her with quiet defiance.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Detective."

Enough was enough. She rose from her chair, looming above the woman who had very nearly succeeded in carrying out Bracken's ultimate end game.

"So you have no idea about why Hannah Brown didn't seem to exist before 3 months ago? About casing our block, learning our lives, our routines, while conveniently fading into the background? About faulty brakes on an otherwise spotless delivery truck?"

Her anger fueled her little speech, bled into her voice, feeding back on itself until she could feel her heart pounding against her ribs, her pulse hammering in her ears.

"About manufacturing a car accident during rush hour in lower Manhattan last Tuesday so that my sudden death while on duty would look for all the world like a tragic but unpremeditated accident? About scrambling to confirm the two things now keeping me alive despite the Senator's immaculate plan - that I've lost my memory, and that I'm carrying my fiancé's child?"

Hannah, completely unfazed by Beckett's outburst, reached out, fingered the edge of brown cardboard delicately, then flipped the file closed.

"That's quite a tale y'all have spun. Sounds like it would fit just fine in one of your writer's books." She quirked her lips and flicked her eyes up to the two-way, as if she knew exactly who was watching through that glass.

"Too bad all you have to back it up are a couple of fuzzy photos and the memory of an emotionally unstable detective with an axe to grind who took a nasty blow to the head only a week ago."

Hannah paused and turned her full attention back to Beckett, then settled back in her chair, crossing one leg unhurriedly over the other. The first tendrils of defeat began to coalesce, curling heavy in the pit of Kate's stomach.

"Seems to me you've got no proof at all."

# * # * # * #

A/N:

WEIKERSHEIM, Germany - Thanks to all who have stuck with me despite a long hiatus. We only have a few more chapters to go, but lots of ground yet to cover. I'll do my best with producing more quickly and continue to beg your forgiveness. Alex, you are a saint for all the commiseration and well-timed gentle prodding. You will be rewarded in your next life with honor, glory, fortune and fame. Unfortunately, in this one, you just get my undying gratitude and lots of Margaritas. And maybe a Beckett corset-fic. ;)

Twitter: Kate_Christie_  
Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com


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